Feast of All Saints

Fr. Mark Gatto

Preached: BNovember 1, 2026

Who is someone that has made a difference in your Christian life? Parent, Grandparent, Friend, Clergy, Teacher, Fellow parishioner, a spiritual writer? Perhaps there is a particular Saint that inspires your Christian faith.

The fact is that you cannot be a Christian all by yourself. We do not follow Jesus all alone. We need other people of faith to support and inspire us. We need to be in communion with the Church. There is a saying, “if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.” To persevere in the Catholic journey we need to live it with others.

As we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, we are reminded that we are in communion, connected to all the disciples of Jesus. We are in communion with all the Saints who have lived the Faith through the ages. It is a reminder of our need to be in communion with the church.

There is an old story that perhaps I have shared before. There was a small town with a church. There was one man in the town who had declared to everyone that he did not need to go to church to keep his faith. This was getting spread around throughout the town. Finally, the local pastor decided to go pay this man a visit. He knocked on the door and the man was surprised to see the pastor. But, he invited him in and the two men sat down before a fireplace that was blazing with burning coals. They began to have a conversation about many things, though the pastor never mentioned about his not going to church.

After a while they both went quiet and at a certain point the pastor stood up and went over to the fireplace. He took the tongs and grabbed one of the hot red coals and took it out from among the other coals and placed it by itself on the ledge. Then the two men watched in silence as very quickly that one coal by itself became cold and grey while the other coals continued to burn brightly. Without saying anything else that man returned to church the following Sunday. A Christian who is not connected to the church, and other believers, will usually become cold in their faith.

There is no such thing as an independent Christian. Even hermits who live on their own are normally connected to some community of faith who supports him. A man preparing for the priesthood must be connected to a community. Fr. Joonbin and I are Diocesan priests, we are in communion with the Diocese of Hamilton, in union with the bishop of Hamilton. Other priests may be connected to a Religious Community, such as the Jesuits, the Dominicans, the Carmelites, the Franciscans, or many others that exist.

No man can begin studying for the priesthood until he is connected to a community. There is no such thing as a private independent priest doing his own ministry. A priest serves within a community. For us it is this parish of St. Catherine of Siena in the Diocese of Hamilton, presently under Bishop Joseph Dabrowski.

For many of us our first community of faith is our family. Parents, grandparents, a family that brought us into the faith and supported our faith. If we are fortunate our basic Christian community is our family, called to be the domestic church.

For others it may be a friend or colleague who introduced us into the faith. Then we become part of a local church community such as our parish of St. Catherine of Siena.

As Catholics, we are then connected to the universal church throughout the world and through the generations. This is expressed at every Mass when the presider refers to us being in communion with Leo our Pope and Joseph our Bishop.

On this Feast of All Saints the church selects the gospel passage of the Beatitudes from Matthew’s Gospel. This passage presents the really radical challenge of living a Christian life. It is counter-cultural to the extreme in our world. Only someone who is living with others striving to live this lifestyle will find the support needed to follow this path.

We are to live as God’s children, and as brothers and sisters with all others trying to live as children of God. You cannot live a Christian life by yourself, independently. Be in communion with the church.

Who are the people who have encouraged, inspired, supported your Catholic Faith?