All Saints Day 2026

 

All Saints Day

November 1, 2026

Why We Need The Saints

 

            As you know, I love the saints. These, our older brothers and sisters in the Faith, have been a constant presence in my life for as long as I can remember. But why do we need the saints? What’s their role in our lives? I think there are three roles that the saints play in the lives of every Catholic.

            First, the saints provide us with intercession – they can pray for us. It’s nice to pray to someone who experienced our own struggles – for example, we can pray to St. Joseph of Cupertino if we struggle in school, because he himself was not blessed with a quick intellect. Or someone in a difficult marriage can turn to St. Monica, whose marriage was difficult. It’s comforting to know we have someone in our corner who understands what we’re going through, because they went through it themselves. I mean, Jesus and Mary didn’t struggle with temptation, or a difficult family, or some of the stuff that we go through – but the saints did, so we can turn to them and ask for their prayers.

            Even the saints asked the saints for prayers! Because of the French Revolution, St. John Vianney couldn’t go to school as a boy, so when he wanted to become a priest in his 20s, he didn’t even know how to read well. After several years of failure, he was so discouraged that he took a pilgrimage to the shrine of a Jesuit saint, St. John Francis Regis, and begged the saint to pray for him to survive his studies. He was able to do so, and credited St. John Regis for everything – even saying on his deathbed, “Everything good I have done, I owe to him!”

            But one may ask, why should we ask the saints for things? Can’t we just go directly to God? Of course we can – but don’t we ask our friends to pray for us if we’re going through a tough time? Same thing – we pray to a saint because they are a friend who is even more alive than you and me. Jesus Himself promised that if two of us agree on anything, He will do it, if it’s good for our salvation. We can enlist the saints in that task.

            Second, the saints provide us with companionship – we can actually be friends with them! A few years back I walked the ancient pilgrimage route called Santiago di Compostella across northern Spain to the bones of St. James. It’s a grueling 500-mile hike through mountains and desert, and the first day was particularly difficult because I ate something pretty bad and felt horribly sick on the fourteen-mile hike over the Pyrenees. So I started praying to the saints who had hiked El Camino before (many saints, such as St. Francis of Assisi, walked that same trail), and I literally felt their presence as if they were walking alongside me. Just as we can have a friendship with Jesus, just as we can talk with our loved ones who have gone before us, we can communicate with the saints by speaking with them about our lives – and they can accompany us in our daily lives, too!

            Finally, the saints offer us an example – they are ordinary human beings like us, weak and fallen, who show us it is possible to be all God is calling us to be. Whatever your situation, you can find a saint to show you the way to holiness. Married couple? We’ve got St. Zelie and Louis Martin, a married couple who made their home such a sanctuary that all five daughters became nuns, one of whom is St. Therese of Lisieux. Single adult? We’ve got St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, who used to go on Rosary-praying hikes with his friends and used his free time to serve the poor of Turin, Italy. Widowed? Turn to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who suffered the loss of her husband and two of her sons but kept her faith in God as she began the Catholic school system in America. Kid? We’ve got some wonderful saints like St. Carlo Acutis who showed that it’s possible to become a saint as a young man in the modern, technological age. Suffering physical ailments? St. Camillus di Lellis used his chronic illnesses to motivate himself to found an order of priests and brothers who would work with the sick. Ashamed of the sins of your past? Think of St. Augustine, whose worldly, lustful life was only a prelude to a radical conversion to Christ.

            It’s a lie that holiness is impossible - the saints provide the emphatic response to that lie. A life lived for Christ is not only possible, but a requirement for every Christian. Allow me to introduce you to St. Rupert of Bingen. Raised by his wealthy but pious mother, young Rupert took his Catholic Faith to heart. One day as a child, he saw a group of poor and ragged children running through town, and to encourage his mother to give them food and clothing, he cried out to her, “Look, Mother! Look at all your children!” Another time, his mother told him that she wanted to buy something nice for the house, but the young boy replied, “But first, we must follow Jesus’ words and take care of the poor and hungry.” Moved by such encouragement, Rupert’s mother started using their money to take care of the poor. He went with his mother on a pilgrimage to Rome when he was twelve, and this inspired him to pray more and to give his life to the Lord.

            One may say, “Yeah, but that was twelve hundred years ago. No one has such faith now.” I beg to disagree. Last year I met with one of our young parishioners in elementary school who had been suffering with extreme anxiety for years. I asked him if he was discouraged by praying for a cure and it hadn’t been coming, but he said, “I just love God so much that I'll keep praying even if it takes five more years! I'll never stop loving God, no matter what!” We cannot say that there is no faith now – the work of the Holy Spirit is, as St. Augustine said, “ever ancient and ever new.” If St. Rupert and this young parishioner can have such a faith and a hunger for God, then clearly the saints are meant to inspire us to follow their example. It is still possible to become saints – and through their intercession, companionship, and example, we too can join their number.