Image 1 of 1: The Trinity Adored by All Saints, Spanish painter, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Saints and feasts
All Saints
This is a feast rather than a single life, and its main point is simple and strong: holiness is for famous and hidden figures alike.
The reading
ⓘ Butler source
Butler's Lives of the Saints, Volume IV (October-November-December), November 1, All Saints, Christian Classics 1990, pp. 232-240.
All Saints gathers into one feast not only the canonized and publicly named saints, but the countless holy ones known fully only to God. The day is thanksgiving for grace already victorious in human lives, a call to ask the saints' intercession, and a summons to imitate holiness in whatever state of life God has given us. Its strength lies in refusing to confine sanctity to conspicuous religious figures.
Holiness is possible in every station. So the feast is not only about admiring Heaven from afar. It is about remembering what God has already done in His servants and what He still means to do in us.
Historical note
Because All Saints is a feast treatment rather than a normal biography, this page keeps the focus on the communion of saints and on holiness being possible in every state of life.
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Nearby saint lives
Move through the calendar without leaving the saint library. These nearby feast-day lives help keep the reading trail connected.
More prayers, novenas and litanies
More devotions
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Choose a connected devotion or a clearly labeled general prayer.
Keep learning
What does the communion of saints mean?
Read question 1201 and its complete answer in the Baltimore Catechism.
Read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5