Oscar Wilde an English writer once said:    “The Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone—for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do”.   He says this with a kind of  humor but he was serious in the sense of it’s a matter of eternal life or eternal condemnation.  He was reconciling with the Catholic Church.  He sure did sow his wild oats, no pun intended!  He knew he was a sinner and was contrite about it.  That takes a lot of humility for an irreverent intellectual.  The catholic church has never officially declared who is in hell but has proclaimed joyfully and in public its firm belief who are in heaven.  That is why we celebrate All Saints Day.  We exercise the virtue of hope that our departed is in heaven and not in hell.
Let us get this straight right away.  The saints are not the people whom we think or feel are in heaven.  Today’s feast is the belief of the whole Catholic Church as to who are in heaven.  They are proclaimed.  This feast mirrors the hope of every human being that at the end there will be justice, peace, bliss and happiness.  That at the end there will be no evil in our midst.  This Feast also serves the purpose of awakening our awareness that we belong to a church that is holy with saints as the guarantee of its holiness inspite of the dismaying failures of some of  her members.  I suppose this is the answer to the question of Christ: When the son of man comes will he find faith on earth?  Yes,  is our emphatic answer because the Holy Spirit who begot saints are with us to guide all into the church of Christ.  We are sinners, true, but called to holiness.  It reminds us that through the Holy Spirit all of us are called to become saints.  St. Paul in his letters addressed the believers as Saints.  This is the feast of every triumphant human soul.  This Feast also serves the purpose of awakening our awareness that we belong to a church that is holy with the saints as the guarantee of its holiness.   It is also an encouragement for us reminding us of our nature as members of this church.  We are sinners but called to holiness.   It reminds us that through the Holy Spirit all of us are called to become saints.  St. Paul in his letters addressed the believers as Saints.
The Second Reading from the First Letter of John reminded us of the great love of God who has chosen to call us His children.  During our sanctification through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ. “What we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” This feast gives us an assurance of a bright future.  It is this future which makes us overcome despair and the sense of hopelessness in this world especially in times of sufferings.   With no belief in the future life offers no hope and, therefore, we simply make all the effort to make this life more comfortable  More importantly, this a feast of hope not only for ourselves but for the countless people in the world who do not know Christ and God their father.  It is our firm belief that the power of God and his goodness cannot be confined in and by our churches.   The churches are made of people who cannot even reach out to everyone who have not heard of Christ.   Certainly this could not impede God in His work of salvation.   Jesus speaks of the beatitudes.  In these beatitudes there is nothing characteristically catholic or Christian.  It is the goodness of God in human beings, or if you like to call it grace.  And anyone can respond to it.   God is at work in the midst of all human beings all over the world in the past present and future.  No church can confine and limit the love of God for all human beings.  If this is true then we have pushed God to a corner.  It is like that God has no “contingency” plans. It may be possible that one is outside the church but no one is outside Christ.  Christ embraces all human beings.   Nothing can separate us from the love of God.   What we cannot do as church will certainly be fulfilled by God and in God in God’s own way.   Our limitation and inadequacies is absolutely not God’s too.  The love of God goes beyond our churches.   All human beings who die for justice, who die for love, who sacrifice their lives for the sake of others are saints regardless of church affiliation.  Men and women who lived  the beatitudes are countless but they are unheralded.  That is why John describes a countless number of multitudes around the throne of God.   Who are these countless multitudes.  They are those who have been visited by the unknown God and responded with joy to the goodness this unknown God has planted in their hearts.  They followed the Good in their lives and gave their lives to it.   All the Saints keep up this hope in the world for the sake of others.  This feast witnesses to their faith that there is a life of unending peace, justice, love, and happiness.  When there will be longer any basis for exclusion and division, where all are equal because all are children of God beloved to Him in Christ.  Let us hope and pray that our names will be among  the saints so that we too may be included as future generations celebrate our FEAST.  The feast of All Saints.