While most liturgical feast days are static and only celebrate a single saint, All Saints Day is much more encompassing and always growing.
All Saints Day is a rare feast in that it is designed to celebrate every man and woman who currently rests in the embrace of our Heavenly Father.
This number increases every minute of the day as another person dies, leaving this life for Eternal Life with God.
Bigger and bigger
Dom Prosper Guéranger comments on this reality in his Liturgical Year:
Year by year, as the great solemnity comes round, it has gathered from among our former companions new saints, who bless our tears and smile upon our songs of hope.
Guéranger reminds us that All Saints Day not only celebrates those newly canonized, but also any person who died in a state of grace.
This could include our next door neighbor or our sibling or parent who died recently.
Furthermore, All Saints Day is also a day that we hope someday to be included in, as Guéranger reminds us:
Year by year the appointed time draws nearer when we ourselves, seated at the heavenly banquet, shall receive the homage of those who succeed us and hold out a helping hand to draw them after us to the home of everlasting happiness.
All Saints Day is a beautiful celebration, one that is a constant reminder of our ultimate destination, where we hope to be reunited with all of those who have gone before us in faith.
