Following the Track of the Lamb (All Saints Day, Nov. 01)

The entrance antiphon of the Solemnity of All Saints invites us to rejoice in the Lord, as we celebrate the feast day in honor of all the Saints. Maybe we have to ask: Is our joy today of any profit to the saints in heaven? Do the saints actually need our honour? Well, we may answer “Yes”. But then, our aim of gathering to celebrate today should be far from just gathering to honor the saints. In fact, whatever we say or do (in the name of honoring them) is not going to add anything to or remove anything from what they have already become.

When you sincerely say that you honor someone (maybe, a king), it is highly probable that what you mean is that you respect and admire the person. Somebody was saying that he honors priests; and I suggested that he should make effort to become one; and he said, “God forbid!” Well, if the person does not desire to become that which he admires, what is the point of that admiration? We can’t sincerely honor or admire somebody without longing to be like him or her.

Today, we specially honor the saints. But who are the saints? The first reading from the Book of Revelation (7:2-4.9-14) gives us a faint idea of who the saints are and what they have done to merit the honor that we give them. In that reading, it is recorded that “before the throne and before the Victorious Lamb stood a great multitude which no one could number from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, clothed in white garments, with palm branches in their hands, and singing before the Lamb”. When St John, the visioner, inquired to know who those people are, he was told that “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their clothes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”. The point of emphasis is: that the WHITE GARMENTS in which they are clothed were washed in the BLOOD OF THE LAMB. It is not enough that we admire the multitude of saints in heaven; it is not enough that we admire their white garments? Do we also admire the BLOOD in which those garments were washed? Do we also admire the track which they followed in order to become what they are today? They went through great tribulation, to the point of washing their garments clean in the blood of the Lamb. In other words, they shared in the suffering of the Lamb who was slain.

We may further ask: How were they able to endure such tribulations till the end? St Paul tells us in Colossians 3:2 that they set their minds on the things in heaven, not on earth; they concentrated on the joy that awaits them, not on the pains that they were going through; they set their eyes on their future and lasting glory, not on their present and momentary defeats. They were a people who the Psalmist, in today’s Psalm (24:4), describes as “those whose souls were set not on vain things”. As St John aptly puts it in the second reading (1 John 3:1-3), it never appeared to them (the saints) what they shall be (in future) when they were suffering on earth; but they were confident that when God appears, they shall be like Him. And today, they are like God, sharing in His holiness. 

Even while on earth as they suffered, they were already blessed. They were blessed not because they were having millions of money while on earth; not because all of their desires were fulfilled, not because they received breakthroughs at adoration and praying grounds, and so on. Their earthly blessedness was never because of any of the above; neither can we say that it was shown through any of the above. They were blessed because they believed very strongly that “their reward will be great in heaven”. And that is the reward they are currently enjoying.

If we continue to set our eyes on the things of earth, thinking that the blessings of God will come to us as long as we continue to sing His praises, attend church and offer thousands of prayers to Him without making efforts to endure certain pains and inconveniences in life, we are just making a joke of ourselves. We admire the saints. Good and fine! We honor them. Wonderful! We aspire to be like them. That’s a very noble idea! But are we ready to go through the track they went through? There is only one track, and there is no other. The track of blood, the track of the Lamb, the track of the Cross!