Pope on All Saints' Day: With the Lord's help, let's aspire to holiness

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

"Do I ask God, in prayer, for the gift of a holy life? Do I let myself be guided by the good impulses that His Spirit inspires in me? And do I commit myself personally to practising the Beatitudes of the Gospel, in the environments in which I live?"

Pope Francis called on faithful to reflect seriously on these questions during his Angelus address in the Vatican on the Solemnity of All Saints.

The Holy Father began by recalling the day's Gospel according to St. Matthew, in which Jesus proclaims the Beatitudes, which Pope Francis called once again "the Christian's identity card" and helps us on the path toward holiness.

READ THE POPE'S FULL ANGELUS ADDRESS HERE

Gift from God

In this sense, Pope Francis observed it is a gift from God because, as Saint Paul says, it is He who sanctifies, and for this reason, he said, "the Lord is the first we ask to make us holy, to make our heart similar to His."

"With His grace," Pope Francis continued, the Lord "heals us and frees us from all that prevents us from loving as He loves us, so that in us, as Blessed Carlo Acutis used to say, there may always be 'less of me to make room for God.'”

Our response

This, the Pope said, leads us to consider our response.

In this context, Pope Francis stressed that God "indeed offers us His holiness, but He does not impose it."

"He sows it in us, He makes us taste its flavour and see its beauty, but then," the Holy Father highlighted, "He awaits our response."

The Lord, the Pope went on to say, "leaves us the freedom of following His good inspirations, of letting ourselves be involved in His plans, of making His sentiments ours, putting ourselves, us, as He taught us, in the service of others..."

Saints of our time

We see all of this, the Pope highlighted, in the lives of the Saints, "even in our time."

"How much holiness is hidden in the Church," the Pope said.

"Think, for example," he said, "of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who in Auschwitz asked to take the place of a father of a family, condemned to death; or of Saint Teresa of Calcutta, who spent her existence in the service of the poorest of the poor; or of Bishop Saint Oscar Romero, murdered at the altar for having defended the rights of the last against the abuse of their oppressors."

"In them, as in many other Saints – those we venerate on the altars and those 'next door', with whom we live every day," he said we recognize brothers and sisters who lived or live out the Beatitudes.

Welcoming instinct toward holiness

The Holy Father highlighted a characteristic of the Saints, namely that they "are people filled with God," who are "incapable of remaining indifferent to the needs of their neighbour," and they witness, even for us, what sort of life we can aspire to.

Pope Francis went on to ask how they can on a personal and practical level be inspired by the Saints' holy examples, and implored the Blessed Mother help them make their lives "a path of holiness."