M
mdgspencer
Guest
see w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20061101_all-saints.html
All Saints’ Day is about all those in heaven who have died, including people we knew and loved, as the words of the Pope reflect. He said that the saints are an innumerable crowd, which “not only includes the officially recognized Saints, but the baptized of every epoch and nation who sought to carry out the divine will faithfully and lovingly. We are unacquainted with the faces and even the names of many of them, but we see them shine in God’s firmament”…
In the first reading for All Saints’ Day, the Pope goes on to say, “the author of the Book of Revelation describes them as ‘a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues’ (Rv 7:9).”
"But ‘why should our praise and glorification, or even the celebration of this Solemnity, mean anything to the Saints?’ the Pope goes on to say. “A famous homily of St Bernard for All Saints’ Day begins with this question. It could equally be asked today. And the response the Saint offers is also timely: ‘The Saints,’ he says, ‘have no need of honor from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs… But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning.’”
All Saints’ Day is about all those in heaven who have died, including people we knew and loved, as the words of the Pope reflect. He said that the saints are an innumerable crowd, which “not only includes the officially recognized Saints, but the baptized of every epoch and nation who sought to carry out the divine will faithfully and lovingly. We are unacquainted with the faces and even the names of many of them, but we see them shine in God’s firmament”…
In the first reading for All Saints’ Day, the Pope goes on to say, “the author of the Book of Revelation describes them as ‘a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues’ (Rv 7:9).”
"But ‘why should our praise and glorification, or even the celebration of this Solemnity, mean anything to the Saints?’ the Pope goes on to say. “A famous homily of St Bernard for All Saints’ Day begins with this question. It could equally be asked today. And the response the Saint offers is also timely: ‘The Saints,’ he says, ‘have no need of honor from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs… But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning.’”