Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons: Sunday November 2nd 2025

. The Ghent Altarpiece - Adoration of the Lamb - by Jan van Eyck

Solemnity of All Saints

At the heart of the feast of All Saints is a journey, one that each of us is invited to make. It's a simple journey that for us is found in the invitation to 'follow Christ' by trying to live out his commandment to love and serve one another, to seek God and discover in our hearts who we really are. Though we may live in different places, be formed by different cultures and experience life very differently, there is one common denominator, a very simple one: we are all the children of the Living God, belonging to an immense family which no one can number, and yet in which each of us is uniquely important. For us as Catholic Christians, baptism is the sacramental way we became part of this family, united to and with Christ our Lord and brother-and then through the sacrament of confirmation ( chrismation) we are signed and sealed by the Spirit, our gifts and talents blessed for the service of God and others as long as we shall live!

By belonging to the community of believers, we are gifted the Spirit's help and promised Christ's abiding presence and nourishment in order to grow into our destiny as holy ones, called out to be the saints of God. To help us we are given named examples of women, men and children who in their particular way help us understand that 'holiness' is not piety, 'goodness' is not some prim sterile concept, and a 'saint' isn't a superhuman but an ordinary person who loves the Lord and lets that gift take them over in service of others! There are many such named saints, identified by the community of the Church and celebrated during the course of our liturgical year.

It was, and I hope still is, the custom that we take the name of a saint at our baptism and confirmation, a friend so to speak in the Kingdom of Heaven, and somebody who we pray with and ask intercession from. I still keep the French and monastic custom of celebrating the feasts of my name saints each year-in a small way I see my link with them as a hint of what we all shall be when we celebrate the great feast of all gathered together at the table of the Lord in the Kingdom. It is also important for me (and also yourselves) to connect our celebration of their feasts to our own celebration of the Eucharist, that very real foretaste and participation in the great and joyful mystery of the wedding feast of the Lamb!

But we are also called to be holy, to be the real saints of `God in our daily lives. This is why this feast has something important to offer each one of us. It's not only the liturgical celebration of all those holy people recognised in a formal manner by being canonised, and known through their example and teaching, but also of those who have tried to live out the Beatitudes and are known only to a few! Putting it starkly, All Saints is also the feast of everyone! Why? There are those who will point out to me, quite rightly, that we are sinners, often in a situation of life that is not particularly holy at all. But do not forget a saint is also a sinner, but one who knows how to ask and embrace 'Mercy', whose prayer is Kyrie eleison, who through all things learns to love the Christ and serve others with him.

If we look at the Beatitudes which is the gospel of this feast, Jesus does not say 'get on, and put them in to practice all at once'! We need to be more pragmatic and circumspect. It may be that your calling is to reflect the burning light of a particular beatitude in what you do! By living out that virtue and gift we bring down blessings on our world, but that does not exclude the others from gradually becoming other blessings for us. To be honest, I cannot live out all the Beatitudes as a whole, and of course I make mistakes and often fail, but that's how human life is! Taking the inspiration of our great English saint and now doctor of the Church, John Henry Newman, we learn that to become perfect is a long process, to reach holiness is to change often: '"To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."

Saint Benedict whose Rule has helped many women and men, monastic and lay, to live out the Gospel of the Beatitudes in a singular manner points out that our journey is one of conversion of heart, change for the better, but also acknowledgment of our mistakes as part of the journey towards mercy. Saint Francis, that most loved of saints, reminds us of the inner joy we can have when in simplicity, we learn to recognise the love of God shining through all creatures particularly the least, and also those who we might consider outside of our own experience and faith journey. Yes, there will be many surprises when we discover those 'other' saints not of our household but certainly of Gods!

You will have your favourite saints, and on this day together with them and all the Blessed in the Kingdom, we celebrate in anticipation the joy that is ours at the end of our journey. But we rejoice also in the hope we have by faith, that in and through the love and providence of God, even now, a sinner though we might be, we shall reflect, even without knowing, the light of Christ, our true, holy, and living Lord ! Happy Feast!

Lectio

John Henry Newman - Doctor of the Church

"God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away".

Rule of St Benedict

Chapter 7 Humility

'…if we want to reach the highest summit of humility, if we desire to attain speedily that exaltation in heaven to which we climb by the humility of this present life, 6then by our ascending actions we must set up that ladder on which Jacob in a dream saw angels descending and ascending (Gen 28:12). 7Without doubt, this descent and ascent can signify only that we descend by exaltation and ascend by humility. 8Now the ladder erected is our life on earth, and if we humble our hearts the Lord will raise it to heaven. 9We may call our body and soul the sides of this ladder, into which our divine vocation has fitted the various steps of humility and discipline as we ascend'.

Saint Francis of Assisi

Where there is Love and Wisdom, there is neither Fear nor Ignorance.
Where there is Patience and Humility, there is neither Anger nor Annoyance.
Where there is Poverty and Joy, there is neither Cupidity nor Avarice.
Where there is Peace and Contemplation, there is neither Care nor Restlessness.
Where there is the Fear of God to guard the dwelling, there no enemy can enter.
Where there is Mercy and Prudence, there is neither Excess nor Harshness.