Feast Of All Saints Day

[A Sermon of Saint Bede the Venerable]

Today, beloved brethren, we celebrate in one joyful solemnity the Feast day of all the Saints. In their society Heaven exults, in their protection earth rejoices, in their triumphs the Holy Church is crowned. The more endurance they showed in giving witness, the brighter is the glory of that witness; for, as the battle was fiercer, the glory of the fighters

all Saints Day was greater. The many kinds of suffering enhance the triumph of martyrdom; and the greater the torments, the greater also the reward. Our Mother the Catholic Church, spread far

and wide over the whole earth, was taught in Jesus Christ her Head to fear neither insults, crosses nor death. Grown stronger and stronger, not by resisting but by enduring, she has breathed the will to victory into all those whose containment in this earthly prison forms them into an imposing army, that they may be inspired to fight the good fight with no less ardent courage than these who have gone before.

Oh truly blessed Mother Church, basking in the glow of God’s favor, adorned with the glorious blood of the victorious Martyrs and clothed in the virginal white of an untarnished orthodoxy! Her garlands lack neither the rose nor the lily. We should each then strive, dear brethren, to gain the great dignity of these two honors, either the white crown of virginity or the red of suffering. In the heavenly camps, both peace and war have their garlands with which to crown the soldiers of Christ.

For the unutterable and immense goodness of God has seen to it that the time of labor and struggle should not be prolonged nor long-drawn-out nor endless, but that it should rather be brief and, as we might say, momentary. For the struggles and the labors belonging to this short and hard life, but the crowns and rewards of merit to that which is eternal. The labors, then, will be ended quickly, but the rewards of merit will continue without end. And after the darkness of this world, we are to see the most radiant light and to receive a blessedness greater than the bitterness of all sufferings, as the Apostle testifies when he says,” The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that will be revealed in us.”