NEWSLETTER INSERTS FOR SUNDAY 1ST NOVEMBER - FEAST OF ALL SAINTS

‘Dear young people of every continent, do not be afraid to be the saints of the new millennium! Be contemplative, love prayer; be coherent with your faith and generous in the service of your brothers and sisters, be active members of the Church and builders of peace’.

Pope St John Paul II

‘Surrounded, led and guided by the friends of God… I do not have to carry alone what, in truth, I could never carry alone. All the saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me’.

Pope Benedict XVI, Homily for the Solemn Inauguration of the Petrine Ministry, 24 April 2005.

‘Let us ask the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us a fervent longing to be saints for God’s greater glory, and let us encourage one another in this effort. In this way, we will share a happiness that the world will not be able to take from us’.

Pope Francis, Rejoice and be Glad, 177.

'Thomas Merton, the great American spiritual writer of the last century, tells the story of a conversation with a friend that changed his life. His friend asked him one day what he would like to be in life. Thomas answered ‘a good Catholic’. His friend reminded him that his desire was too narrow and too weak. ‘What you should desire most of all is to be saint’ his friend said. ‘All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one. Don’t you believe that God will make you what he created you to be, if you will allow him to do it? All you have to do is desire it’ (The Seven Storey Monutain).

Fr Billy Swan

'We are like cells in a living body and so are never alone. This rich spirituality of connection with others is sustained by our lives of prayer and by the liturgy which also connects us to the countless saints and people of faith who have gone before us on our pilgrim journey. These include the communion of saints whom we can befriend and ask to pray for us. It also includes our loved ones who have already died and whose love for us lives on in God'.

‘The saints heroically served their respective cultures and countries but refused to give their ultimate allegiance to anyone or anything other than their greatest love: Jesus Christ’.

‘The witnesses who have preceded us into the kingdom, especially those whom the Church recognizes as saints, share in the living tradition of prayer by the example of their lives, the transmission of their writings, and their prayer today. They contemplate God, praise him and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth. When they entered into the joy of their Master, they were "put in charge of many things." Their intercession is their most exalted service to God's plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world’.

Catechism of the Catholic Church 2683.