Feast of All Saints 2025

 

I’ve been reading The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton lately, and there’s a scene that really stayed with me. Merton is walking with his friend Robert Lax, talking about what he wants to do with his life. He says something like, “I guess I just want to be a good Catholic.”

Lax looks at him and says quietly, “What you should say is that you want to be a saint.”

Merton laughs, “How do you expect me to be a saint?”

And Lax replies, “By wanting to. All that’s necessary to be a saint is to want to be one.”

That line stopped me in my tracks. All that’s necessary to be a saint is to want to be one. Merton said that conversation changed him. He realized that holiness wasn’t just for mystics or monks or people with halos in stained-glass windows. It was for ordinary people who desired God deeply, who let that desire shape who they were and how they loved.

Today, as we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, the Church invites us to rediscover that same desire. We remember the great saints—Francis and Clare, Augustine and Monica, Teresa and Thérèse—but also the countless unnamed ones: grandparents, neighbors, teachers, priests, parents, and friends who quietly lived the Beatitudes.

The saints weren’t perfect people. They were people who wanted God more than anything else, who let that longing transform their hearts and their lives. They remind us that sainthood isn’t about doing extraordinary things; it’s about doing ordinary things with extraordinary love.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us the blueprint for holiness. He doesn’t say, “Blessed are the successful,” or “Blessed are the powerful,” or “Blessed are those who have it all together.” He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers.”

The Beatitudes are a portrait of the saintly heart—a heart that reflects God’s mercy and love in the world. The poor in spirit depend on God. The merciful forgive. The pure in heart love without mixed motives. The peacemakers heal divisions. These are the people who live with God’s heart beating inside their own.

Every parish I’ve ever served has saints. They might not think of themselves that way, but they are. They’re the parents who stay up late helping with homework after working a double shift. They’re the caregivers who sit patiently beside a loved one with dementia. They’re the volunteers who show up early to make coffee for the funeral reception, or the altar servers who hold the candles steady even when their arms are tired.

They’re the people who forgive quietly, love deeply, and hope stubbornly. They don’t wear halos—they wear aprons, work boots, or nursing scrubs. And they remind us that sainthood isn’t beyond reach. It begins with desire. “All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one.”

Maybe that’s the invitation of All Saints Day: to let God raise our sights. Instead of saying, “I just want to be a good Catholic,” maybe we can dare to say, “Lord, I want to be a saint.” Not because we think we’re worthy, but because God is. Because the world needs saints—merciful, humble, joyful people who live the Beatitudes in real time.

When Merton wrote about that conversation years later, he said it marked the beginning of his conversion—a moment when he realized holiness was possible, not in some far-off monastery, but in the ordinary circumstances of life.

So today, as we gather among the saints of heaven and the saints sitting beside us in the pews, let’s make that same desire our prayer:

“Lord, make me a saint—not someday, but today.
Help me to be poor in spirit, meek, merciful, pure of heart, and a maker of peace.
Help me to live your Beatitudes.”

Because in the end, sainthood isn’t a prize we win—it’s a desire we surrender to.
And as Robert Lax reminded his friend, and all of us:
“All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one.”