My personal litany of the saints

Today is a solemn feast day.  As well as being Sunday it is also the Solemnity of All Saints.  As Father said in his homily this morning – we get two solemnities for the price of one!  

As I was praying about the feast today I remembered that when our Sisters taught kindergarten they would tell the children that a saint “was someone who made it to Heaven.”  You know, we might focus on all the men and women who are famous saints but in the reading from the Book of Revelation in the Mass today it says “…I (John) had a vision of a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation, race, people and tongue.”  That means that there are so many saints in Heaven their number cannot be counted! 

I thought of a picture I have in my family album, that of my great grandparents and their 11 children.  Theirs was a family of deep devotion and faith and it was from these roots that my own Catholic faith was received.  I want to share that picture with you today because I believe it is a picture of my family saints.  

Great grandpa and grandma Smith with my  great aunts and uncles
Maggie, Annie, Leo, Cleophas, Veronica, Gregory, Rebecca, Fabian, Bertha, Linus and John

You know, I pray to my deceased relatives,  asking for their intercession for my many needs.  I met only three of them but I know the names of the others and I feel very close to them.  I am sure you have your own family saints who are among that great number, standing before the throne of the Lamb.  Let’s honor them today and throughout this month!  What a great promise the Lord has given to us that we too, someday, may be counted among their number.  I know, for me, I want “to make it to Heaven.”