Today is the Solemnity of All Saints. The Church celebrates all the saints: canonised or beatified, and the multitude of those who are in heaven enjoying the beatific visions that are only known to God. During the early centuries the Saints venerated by the Church were all martyrs. Later the Pope set November 1st as the day for commemorating all the Saints. We all have this “universal call to holiness.” What must we do to join the company of the saints in heaven? We “must follow in His footsteps and conform [our]selves to His image seeking the will of the Father in all things. [We] must devote [our]selves with all [our] being to the glory of God and the service of [our] neighbour. In this way, the holiness of the People of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history” (Lumen Gentium, 40).
“This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity—this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed—is called “heaven.” Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfilment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness” (CCC 1024).
