Meditation- The Solemnity of All Saints

---from John Paul II "Prayers and Devotions"

Let us all rejoice in the Lord on this Solemnity of All the Saints! Ours is a sheer, limpid joy, a strengthening one, like that found in a big family, when it is teh kind having its roots there, drawing the new blood of its own life and its own spiritual identity form there.

With our spirit today we are immersed in this numberless host of saints, of the saved. They offer us courage and sing together a chorus of glory to Him whom the psalmists call teh God of my gladness and job (Ps 43:4). At the center of this communication is God himself. He not only calls us to holiness but he gives it to us in Christ's blood as well and so overcomes our sins. We should always sing a hymn of thanksgiving to the Lord. as Mary did, so to give joyous proclamation to he bounty of the Father "for having made you worthy to share the lot of the saints in light" (Col 1:12). So the Feast of All Saints call upon us never to fall back only on ourselves, but to look to the Lord so as to be radiant (cf. Ps 34:6). Not to presume oon our own strength but to trust as sons in him who has loved us, never to grow weary of doing good.

All the Saints have ever been, and are, poor in spirit, meek, afflicted, hungry and thirsty for justice, merciful, pure of heart, peacmakers, percecuted because of the Gospel. They have been these things in varying degrees. We have to be like them. "God's will" is our sanctification (1 Thes 4:3).