Today, Catholic Christians celebrate the feast of All Saints. A “saint,” in Catholic Christianity, refers to a human soul in heaven.
In the early Catholic Church, the term “saint” referred to everyone who followed Jesus. Later, it was reserved for martyrs, people who lost their lives because of the Faith. Later still, the word “saint” included “confessors,” that is, persons who suffered gravely for their Faith but were not actually killed for it. Later, it included people who were believed to have lived heroic lives. And now today, it means all human souls in heaven.
As Catholic Christians, we believe that God’s mercy has no limits, and that with God, all things are possible. Therefore, we are called to pray for the salvation of all people – “all” means “all” – everyone who ever lived, everyone alive now, and everyone who will live in the future.
Tomorrow, we will celebrate the Feast of All Souls’ Day, a day when we are called to remember all the people who have gone before us. In many countries, such as Honduras, people go to the cemetery to decorate the graves of their loved ones with flowers
The above photo shows part of the cemetery of San Carlos, a community of Reitoca, F.M., Honduras.