The Great Multitude Nobody Counted: All Saints and the Holiness Hidden in You

Rev 7:2-4.9-14, Psalm: 23, 1Jn 3:1-3, Mt 5:1-12a

My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Who are the saints? We think we know. They are the ones with statues, stained glass, feast days, and implausible stories. Peter and Paul. Francis and Clare. Thérèse and Teresa. Men and women whose lives were so radiant with grace that the Church could not deny it. But today, the Church tells us something far more unsettling. The saints are not a small club of spiritual overachievers. They are a number that no one could count.

In the Book of Revelation, John sees a vision of heaven. There is a great multitude, “which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.” They are standing before the throne, wearing white robes, holding palm branches. They are not all martyrs. They are not all founders of religious orders. They are not all famous. They are the faithful—the forgotten, the hidden, the ordinary people who washed dishes, changed diapers, paid bills, buried spouses, prayed novenas, and kept the faith. This is the Church triumphant. And most of them, you have never heard of.

In his First Letter, Saint John declares, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” This is our identity. We are already God’s children. Right now. Not when we are perfect. Not when we have earned it. Now. And this identity is the seed of our holiness. “Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.” Holiness is not an achievement. It is the flowering of our identity as children of God.

Then Jesus goes up the mountain and sits down. He opens His mouth and teaches. And what He says is the most paradoxical list of blessings ever spoken. “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are they who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the clean of heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.” The world says: blessed are the rich, the comfortable, the powerful, the popular. Jesus says the opposite. The saints are not the ones who avoided suffering. They are the ones who embraced it, who trusted in God in the midst of it, and who let Him turn their poverty into blessedness.

The connection between the readings is this: the great multitude of Revelation is made up of people who lived the Beatitudes. They did not do extraordinary things. They did ordinary things with extraordinary love. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux never left her convent, never built a hospital, never preached a sermon. She picked up a pin from the floor and offered it to God. She washed dishes with love. She chose the lowest place. And she became a Doctor of the Church.

Pope Francis has said, “The saints are not unreachable heroes. They are like us. They faced the same struggles. But they did not give up. They kept going, one step at a time.” Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting on the Beatitudes, said, “The saints are the living interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.” And Saint John Paul II, in his apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, wrote, “The time has come to promote a spirituality of communion, a holiness that is lived in the ordinary circumstances of daily life.”

What does this mean for us? It means that every one of us is called to be a saint. Not just priests, not just nuns, not just missionaries. Mothers and fathers. Teachers and nurses. Farmers and engineers. Students and retirees. The single and the married. The healthy and the sick. The joyful and the grieving. Holiness is not a spare-time activity. It is the purpose of your life. And it is possible. The ones standing before the throne are not there because they were perfect. They are there because they washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. They repented. They trusted. They tried again.

Today, let us look at the people in our lives who nobody counts. The quiet ones. The faithful ones. The ones who serve without recognition. They are the hidden saints. And then let us look at our own hearts. Where is God asking us to be poor in spirit? To mourn? To be merciful? To make peace?

For the great multitude is still being counted. And you are called to be among them. Amen. May God bless you all!