ALL SAINTS 2026

 

My grandnephew Rian is six years old, and we have a very nice connection. When they visit me at home in Galway, he comes to give me a hug and then just stands there, looking at me, saying nothing, waiting for me to speak. There is an extraordinary natural stillness in him, though that does not mean he is not also very lively in the way of boys.

I eventually break the silence, asking about his life and then I suggest that he go to the kitchen where he might find a little treat for himself and his little brother. Perhaps, that is what he is waiting for all along – the chocolate treat. And that is fine with me too.

But the experience brightens my life and something about his way of behaving reminds me of the Angels and Saints and Disciples whom we encounter in the liturgy today, Feast of All Saints.

Having come through the shadowy images of Halloween and entering more deeply into the darkness of winter, we can find ourselves somewhat low in spirit. November itself brings to mind our loved ones who have died, the sense of grief that never quite goes away and all other feelings of loss that can emerge within us at this time.

I think of the loss that Father Rory is now experiencing, having left this place, this community that he has loved for so long; the sense of loss that is in all of you because he is no longer here, having to get used to a different priest. The loss of Father John still lingers in us all. I am aware of my own loss in having left my family again two weeks ago. And again, I go back to young Rian. Before he left the last day, I told him I would be going away again. He stood gazing at me in silence and then said with sadness, “but you will come back?”

So, we are in need of solace in experiences like these and it is offered to us in All the Saints with whom we are lifted up into a most precious experience of God.

As the boy Rian gazes, so are we called to gaze upon God in Jesus; in gazing to experience a sense of awe at the wonder of who He is and to allow this sense of awe to inspire us to prostrate ourselves in love and adoration. Come in let us bow and bend low, let us kneel before the God who made us. To do this in mind and heart and spirit, even when we are no longer able to do it physically. And all of this opens us up to the bright radiance of God. That is how it is presented in the Book of Revelation.

In the Gospel it is present more simply. Jesus goes up the mountain, sits down and his disciples gather round him, making him the centre of their attention. And their response is to listen to Him, to hear and heed the word that He speaks. This is their act of love and adoration.

And the fruit of all this is expressed so beautifully in the letter of St. John. “We shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He really is.” That is the point of all our living and praying, our losing and our gaining – that we see Him, gaze upon Him and become more and more like Him – just like Moses whose face shone because he had been speaking with God. Like Jesus in the Transfiguration.

I saw such a transfiguration taking place in my mother in the years following the sudden death of her eldest child, my sister Maura who died in her sleep at the age of forty-six. The pain of that loss was carved into my mother and she took to doing an hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament one a week and by the end of her own life you could see that an interior brightness began to show itself in her face. She became more like Him from simply gazing upon Him.