Joyful Gospel Living – November 1, 2026 (Solemnity of All Saints)
“…a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.”
Bulletin Board Art and Activity from Sacred Heart Religious Education Office (Kellie MacRae)
As my husband Jeff and I prepared for a military reassignment to Germany in late 1978, we welcomed into our family our second daughter Nadia. Leaving SD for enroute training in NJ, we decided to arrange for her baptism at my home parish in Camden. It would be a very special sacrament because the priest who taught me religion in my senior year of high school delightfully accepted our request to baptize our daughter.
One of my favorite parts of the rite of baptism is the litany of saints, still hearing the names of our children called at their baptisms. How wondrous it is to hear the prayerful naming of saints, from the time of Jesus across generations of faithful witnesses to the name of the person being baptized (St. Nadia) because of God’s goodness! At every Easter Vigil service, this is such a joyful and wondrous affirmation of God’s love for us:
- He calls us each by name.
- He loves us as His sons and daughters.
- He desires us to be holy and faithful by His grace.
As our parish Bible study group has been journeying through the Documents of the Second Vatican Council this fall, we appreciate the timeliness of this historical Church synod that discerned the relevance of the Church in our challenging modern world. In the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, promulgated by Pope St. Paul VI on November 21, 1964, Chapter V explained our “Universal Call to Holiness in the Church”:
“’God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God and God in him. But, God pours out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us; thus, the first and most necessary gift is love, by which we love God above all things and our neighbor because of God. Indeed, in order that love, as good seed may grow and bring forth fruit in the soul, each one of the faithful must willingly hear the Word of God and accept His will, and must complete what God has begun by their own actions with the help of God’s grace… For charity, as the bond of perfection and the fullness of the law, rules over all the means of attaining holiness and gives life to these same means. It is charity which guides us to our final end. It is the love of God and the love of one’s neighbor which points out the true disciple of Christ.” (42)
From our baptism, we become part of the communion of saints, the vision that St. John described in the Book of Revelation when he observed: “…a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.” Through God’s love, we are called to be part of this holy and living Body of Christ—God’s family.
On October 16th, Jeff and I had the privilege to visit the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, KS, where we visited the tomb of the Venerable Fr. Emil Kapaun. An Army chaplain in Korea, Fr. Emil and his company were taken prisoners of war (POW) to N. Korea. Esteemed greatly for his dedicated and faithful pastoral care, Fr. Emil embodied the selfless love of Christ through many heroic actions that earned him the Legion of Merit and the Medal of Honor (one of only five chaplains to have earned this medal). Although Fr. Emil died neglected in the camp death house on May 23, 1951, his men never forgot his courage and witness to faithful love of God and one another. They knew that they were in the presence of a living saint.
The Diocese of Wichita takes great pride in their native son who felt called to serve as a chaplain during World War II and the Korean War. At the diocesan website, his holy life is captured, from early life on his parents’ farm to serving as a military chaplain: https://frkapaun.org/, with inspiring stories like this…
“One POW, Major Gerry Fink, a captured Marine pilot, was transferred to Father Kapaun’s old camp because he was making trouble in another one. When he arrived, he immediately noticed that the atmosphere in the camp was different than his old one, where the men often fought in order to look out only for themselves. The men here, inspired by the memory of their chaplain, were determined to look after one another. Fink was so struck by the stories he heard of Father Kapaun that he offered his services in creating a tribute and lasting memory to Father Kapaun. Although a Jewish man himself, Fink, a gifted artist, carved a four-foot-tall crucifix out of cherry wood and scrub oak he found in the camp. The crucifix, now on display at Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School in Wichita, KS, became a daily reminder for the prisoners of Father Kapaun’s sacrifice, and on the day of their release, nearly two and a half years after Father Kapaun died, they carried the cross with them to freedom.”
In 2016, the liturgical composer Dan Schutte published the hymn “Saints and Beloved of God” to take notice of what is real to us through shared faith:
- [Refrain] In every place and time the blessed walk among us. There’s a mighty throng that stands at our side, the saints and beloved of God.
- We are joined by a great communion, here on earth and in heav’n above, for this feast prepared by Christ the Lord , companions in His love.
- We are stirred by their faithful witness to the God who takes flesh and bone, to the Christ who lives in hands and hearts, in faces not His own.
As we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints, let us take a moment to be grateful for our baptism, when we became God’s beloved sons and daughters through bounteous grace. Indeed, God has loved us, so let us take St. John’s epistle as an affirmation of who we are:
“Beloved, we are God’s children now.”
Teresa S. Redder, OFS
Saint Katharine Drexel Regional Minister
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