All Saints' Day

With Halloween candy on the clearance racks today, we Catholics turn our attention to All Saint's Day (the Solemnity of All Saints).  Today is a wonderful opportunity for us to gather together to celebrate all the saints who have gone before us, both canonized and uncanonized.

Greeting Pilgrims from his balcony, Pope Benedict XVI had this to say to English speakers today:

I am pleased to wish all of you a happy All Saints Day! This wonderful feast, along with tomorrow's commemoration of the faithful departed, speaks to us of the beauty of our faith and of the joy that awaits us in heaven with our loved ones who have fallen asleep in Christ. Let us therefore pray earnestly that we may all be joyfully united one day in the Father's house. God bless you all!

So what is it about the Saints that captures our attention?  Fr. Jim Martin explains how real the attraction of saints can be, and how important they are for our faith:

Happy All Saint's Day!