Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The bells ring out as joyously as on the brightest days. They announce the great solemnity of the closing Cycle. The feast which shows us time stamped with the impress of eternity, and God taking possession of the declining year and gathering in its harvest. At the sound of their triumphant and harmonious peals, the Church, prostrate and fasting since morning, raises her brow to the light. Guided by Saint John, she penetrates the secrets of Heaven and the words of the Beloved Disciple, uttered by her lips, assume a tone of incomparable enthusiasm. This feast is truly the triumph of her motherhood, for the great crowd of the blessed before the throne of the Lamb are the sons and daughters she alone has given to the Lord.
When Rome had completed the conquest of the world she dedicated to all the gods, in token of her gratitude, the Pantheon, the most durable monument of her power. But when she herself had been conquered by Christ, and invested by Him with the empire over souls, she withdrew her homage from vain idols and offered it to the Martyrs for they, praying for her as she slew them, had rendered her truly eternal. To the martyrs then, and to Mary their Queen, she consecrated forever, on the morrow of her merciful chastisement, the now purified Pantheon. “Come forth from your dwellings, ye Saints of God, hasten to the place prepared for you.” For three centuries the catacombs were the resting place of our Lord’s athletes when they were borne from the arena. These valiant warriors deserved the honours of a triumph far better than did the great victors of old. In 312, however, Rome disarmed but not yet changed in heart, was not at all disposed to applaud the men who had conquered the gods of Olympus and of the Capitol. While the Cross surmounted her ramparts, the white-robed army still lay entrenched in the subterranean crypts that surrounded the city like so many outworks. Three centuries more were granted to Rome that she might make satisfaction to God’s justice and take full cognizance of the salvation reserved for her by His mercy. In 609 the patient work of grace was completed. The Sovereign Pontiff Boniface IV uttered the word for the sacred crypts to yield up their treasures. It was a solemn moment, a fore-runner of that in which the Angel’s trumpet call will sound over the sepulchres of the world. The successor of Saint Peter, in all his apostolic majesty and surrounded by an immense crowd, presented himself at the entrance of the catacombs. He was attended by eighteen chariots magnificently adorned for the conveyance of the martyrs. The ancient triumphal way opened before the Saints. The sons of the Quirites sang in their honour: “You will come with joy and proceed with gladness for behold, the mountains and the hills exult, awaiting you with joy. Arise, ye Saints of God, come forth from your hiding places. Enter into Rome, which is now the holy city. Bless the Roman people following you to the temple of the false gods, which is now dedicated as your own church, there to adore together with you the majesty of the Lord.”
Thus, after six centuries of persecution and destruction, the martyrs had the last word, and it was a word of blessing, a signal of grace for the great city hitherto drunk with the blood of Christians. More than rehabilitated by the reception she was giving to the witnesses of Christ, she was now not merely Rome, but the new Sion, the privileged city of the Lord. She now burned before the Saints the incense they had refused to offer to her idols. Their blood had flowed before the very altar on which she now invited them to rest since the usurpers had been hurled back into the abyss. It was a happy inspiration that induced her, when she dedicated to the holy martyrs the temple built by Marcus Agrippa and restored by Severus Augustus, to leave on its pediment the names of its primitive constructors and the title they had given it, for then only did the famous monument truly merit its name when Christian Rome could apply to the new inhabitants of the Pantheon those words of the Psalm: “I have said, you are gods” (Psalm lxxxi. 6). The thirteenth of May was the day of their triumphant installation.
Every dedication on Earth reminds the Church, as she herself tells us, of the assembly of the Saints, the living stones of the eternal dwelling which God is building for Himself in Heaven. It is not astonishing, then, that the dedication of Agrippa’s Pantheon under the above-mentioned circumstances should have originated the feast of today. Its anniversary, recalling the memory of the martyrs collectively, satisfied the Church’s desire of honouring year by year all her blessed sons who had died for the Lord: for, at an early date it became impossible to celebrate each of them on the day of His glorious death. In the age of peace there was added to the cultus of the martyrs that of the other just who daily sanctified themselves in all the paths of heroism opened out to Christian courage. The thought of uniting these with the former in one common solemnity which would supply for the unavoidable omission of many of them, followed naturally on the initiative given by Boniface IV. In 732, in the first half of that eighth century which was such a grand age for the Church, Gregory III dedicated, at Saint Peter’s on the Vatican, an oratory in honour of the Saviour, of His blessed Mother, of the holy Apostles, of all the holy Martyrs, Confessors and perfect Just who repose throughout the world. A dedication under so extensive a title did not, it is true, imply the establishment of our feast of All Saints by the illustrious Pontiff. Yet from this period it began to be celebrated by divers churches, and that too on the first of November, as is attested with regard to England by Venerable Bede’s Martyrology and the Pontifical of Egbert of York. It was far, however, from being universal when in the year 835 Louis le Debonnaire, at the request of Gregory IV and with the consent of all the bishops of his realm, made its celebration obligatory by law. This decree was welcomed by the whole Church and adopted as her own, says Ado, with reverence and love.
The councils of Spain and Gaul, as early as the sixth century, mention a custom then existing of sanctifying the commencement of November by three days of penance and litanies like the Rogation days which precede the feast of our Lord’s Ascension. The fast on the Vigil of All Saints is the only remaining vestige of this custom of our forefathers who, after the institution of the feast, advanced the triduum of penance, so as to make it a preparation for the solemnity itself. “Let our devotion be complete,” is the recommendation of a contemporaneous author. “Let us prepare ourselves for this most holy solemnity by three days of fasting, prayer and almsdeeds.”
When extended to the entire world the feast became complete. It was made equal to the greatest solemnities and widened its horizon till it reached the infinite, embracing uncreated as well as created sanctity. Its object was now not only Mary and the martyrs: not only all the just children of Adam, but moreover the nine choirs of Angels, and above all the Holy Trinity Itself, God who is all in all, the King of kings, that is, of the Saints, the God of gods in Sion. Hear how the Church awakes her children on this day: “Come let us adore the Lord, the King of kings, for He is the crown of all the Saints.” Such was the invitation addressed by our Lord himself to Saint Mechtilde, the chantress of Helfta, the privileged one of His divine Heart: “Praise me, for that I am the crown of all the Saints.” The virgin then beheld all the beauty of the elect and their glory drawing increase from the Blood of Christ, and resplendent with the virtues practised by Him. And responding to our Lord’s appeal, she praised with all her might the blissful and ever adorable Trinity for deigning to be to the Saints their diadem and their admirable dignity.
Dante too describes Beatrice in the highest Heaven, forming her crown of the reflection of the eternal rays. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” sang the inhabitants of Paradise with one voice. “I seemed,” says the sublime poet, “to behold a smile of the universe. The kingdom of bliss, with all its people both ancient and new, turned look and love all towards one point. O triple light, which shining in a single star does so delight them, look down upon our tempests!” (Dante, Paradiso, xxvii, xxxi.)
The Greeks honour with us, on one common solemnity, “all the Saints of all the countries on Earth, of Asia, Libya, and Europe, of North and South.” But, whereas the West celebrates at the close of the year a feast which represents the gathering of the harvest into our heavenly Father’s granary, the East keeps it on the first Sunday after Pentecost in that spring time of the Church when, under the action of the Holy Ghost, sanctity was everywhere beginning to blossom. We find it thus as early as the fourth century, for it was on this first Sunday after Pentecost, which with us Latins is now the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, that Saint John Chrysostom pronounced his discourse in honour of “all the Martyrs, who have suffered throughout the world.”
In the West also as we have seen, the origin of All Saints’ feast was this general commemoration of the Martyrs. This latter was placed by some Eastern churches on the Friday within the Octave of Easter. It was a happy thought thus to associate the confession of Christ’s witnesses with the victory over death won by Him, whose divine confession before Pontius Pilate had been an example and a support to them in presence of their executioners. Indeed Rome herself had had the same inspiration when she made her solemn commemoration of the Martyrs in the beginning of May, and she still reserves to the Martyrs and Apostles the honour of having a special Office for the whole of Paschal Time.
Ancient documents referring to this day inform us that on the Calends of November the same eagerness was shown as at Christmas to assist at the holy Sacrifice. However general the Feast was, or rather because of its universality, was it not the special joy of everyone, and the honour of Christian families? Taking a holy pride in the persons whose virtues they handed down to posterity, they considered the heavenly glory of their ancestors who had perhaps been unknown in the world to be a higher nobility than any earthly dignity. Faith was lively in those days, and Christians seized the opportunity of this feast to make amends for the neglect, voluntary or involuntary, suffered during the year by the blessed inscribed on the general Calendar. In the famous Bull Transiturus de hoc mundo, by which he established the feast of Corpus Christi, Urban IV mentions this as one of the motives that had led to the prior institution of All Saints, and expresses a hope that the new solemnity may in like manner compensate for the distractions and coldness of the rest of the year towards this divine Sacrament in which He resides who is the crown and the glory of all Saints.Epistle – Apocalypse vii. 2‒12
In those days, behold I, John, saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the sign of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, “Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we sign the servants of our God on their foreheads.” And I heard the number of them that were signed: an hundred forty-four thousand were signed, of every tribe of the children of Israel. Of the tribe of Judah were twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Ruben twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Aser twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Nephthali twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Mianasses twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Zabulon twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand signed: of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand signed. After this I saw a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and they cried with a loud voice saying: “Salvation to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb.” And all the angels stood round about the throne, and the ancients, and the four living creatures; and they fell down before the throne upon their faces, and adored God, saying: “Amen. Benediction, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honour, and power, and strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen.”Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
At the time of His birth the Man-God, through the instrumentality of Caesar Augustus, took a census of the world. It was fitting that on the eve of the Redemption the statistics of the human race should be officially registered. And now it is time to make a fresh enrolment, and to enter in the Book of Life the results of the work of Redemption. “Wherefore this numbering of the world at the time of our Lord’s birth,” says Saint Gregory in one of the Christmas homilies, “save for this manifest reason, that He was appearing in the Flesh, who is to register the elect in eternity?” But, many having withdrawn themselves by their own fault from the benefit of the first enrolment which included all men in the ranks of those to be redeemed, there was need of a second and definitive registration which should cancel the names of the guilty. “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and with the just let them not be written” (Psalm lxviii. 29). such are the words of the Psalmist quoted by Saint Gregory in the above-mentioned homily.
Today, however, the Church is too full of joy to think of any but the elect. They alone take part in the glorious close of human history described in the Epistle. Indeed, they alone are reckoned before God: the reprobate are but the waste of a world where sanctity alone responds to the Creator’s advances, to the ventures of His infinite love. Let our souls be supple to receive the divine stamp which is to render us conformable to the image of the Only-begotten Son, and mark us out as God’s coin. Whoever is unwilling to receive the divine impress will inevitably be marked with the character of the beast (Apocalypse xiii. 16) and when the Angels come to make the final settlement, every coin unfit to bear the divine stamp will fall into the furnace, where the dross will burn eternally.Gospel – Matthew v. 1‒12
At that time, Jesus, seeing the multitudes, went up into a mountain. And when He was set down His disciples came to Him. And opening His mouth, He taught them saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the land. Blessed are they that mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they will have their fill. Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when they will revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven.”Praise be to you, O Christ.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Earth is so near to Heaven today that the one thought which fills all hearts is happiness. The Friend, the Bridegroom, the divine Brother of Adam’s children, comes and sits down among them, and talks of blessedness: “Come to me all you that labour and suffer,” sang the Alleluia Verse, that sweet echo from our fatherland reminding us withal of our exile. And immediately in the Gospel appears the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour. Let us listen to Him, teaching us the ways of blessed hope, the holy delights which are at once an assurance and a foretaste of the perfect bliss of Heaven.
On Sinai Jehovah held the Jew at a distance, giving him precepts under pain of death. On the summit of this other mountain where the Son of God is seated how differently the Law of love is promulgated! In the New Testament the eight beatitudes have taken the place occupied in the Old by the Decalogue graven on stone. Not that the beatitudes repeal the Commandments, but their superabundant justice goes far beyond all prescriptions. It is from His Heart that Jesus brought them forth in order to imprint them, more lastingly than on stone, in the hearts of His people. They are the portrait of the Son of Man, the summary of our Redeemer’s life. Look then and do “according to the pattern that was shown you in the mount” (Exodus xxv. 40).
Poverty was the first mark of our God in Bethlehem and who ever appeared so meek as Mary’s child? Who wept for more noble causes than He in His crib, where He was already expiating our sins and appeasing His Father? They that hunger after justice, the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers: where, save in Him, will they find the incomparable ideal, never attained yet ever imitable? And by His death He became the leader of all those who are persecuted for justice’ sake. In this the highest beatitude on Earth, the Incarnate Word takes delight, returning upon it, detailing it and closing with it in today’s Gospel as with a song of ecstasy. The Church has never had any other ideal. She has ever walked in the footsteps of her Spouse, and her history, throughout the ages, has been but the prolonged echo of the Beatitudes. Let us also understand that we may be blessed both in this world and in the next, let us follow our Lord and the Church.
