Saints of God

Today we celebrate All Saints, and all saints: the people, many unknown to the wider world, who, in their lives and their deaths, incarnated the beatitudes we heard in today's Gospel. They were the peacemakers, the pure in heart, meek, the poor in spirit, those who hungered and thirsted for justice, and were persecuted for doing right...

Some of them are included in the Litany of the Saints, which is used in certain liturgies. It is an important part of any ceremony of religious profession, coming immediately before the profession of vows itself. In essence, it contains the final invocations, the final gathering together of a host of saints and angels to surround and hold the person making vows with their prayer and supplication. And at my profession, as for most RSCJ, this heavenly host was wonderfully eclectic and international - as indeed, it must be in heaven.

In the Society we prepare for, and generally make, our perpetual vows together, as part of an international group who spend five intense months together. With our profession ceremonies incorporating diverse languages and cultures - in my case from every continent - the Litany is an opportunity to invoke the prayers of all our national and personal patrons. Thus, we had Alberto Hurtado side-by-side with Joseph Cardijn; Julian of Norwich linking arms with St Josephine Bakhita. Elsewhere, the Martyrs of England and Wales - including Sts John Fisher and Thomas More, whose feast-day it happened to be - rubbed shoulders with the Martyrs of Uganda, Japan, Korea and Latin America, spanning between them almost five centuries of persecution and passion, across four continents.

We used a French Litany, with the refrain 

Saints et saintes de Dieu, dont la vie et la mort ont crié Jésus-Christ sur les routes du monde, 
Saints et saintes de Dieu, priez pour nous...

Which translates as

Saints of God, whose lives and whose deaths have proclaimed Jesus Christ on the world's highways,
Saints of God, pray for us

And isn't this what we are all called to be? Simply, daily; no more, and, crucially, no less. So, how can my life - how can yours - ceaselessly proclaim Jesus Christ, Love made flesh, on the highways of the world... bringing everyone we encounter with us, onto the highway to heaven...?


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