Africa-Press – Angola. Today, the Catholic world celebrates All Saints’ Day, a commemoration that emerged in the fourth century, but only 500 years later, Pope Gregory IV, definitively decreed the feast, for the 1st of November of each year.
Father Correia Hilário, parish vicar of Nossa Senhora da Nazaré, explained that the Catholic Church celebrates, today, her dignity as mother of saints, image of the divine city and manifests the beauty of the immaculate wife of Christ.
The priest considered that the feast was instituted to thank God for the graces and glory bestowed on the saints, which serves to honor, invoke and imitate all the saints, known and unknown, brothers and sisters in the faith.
“To celebrate the memory of all the saints who preceded us in the holiness of life and, now, contemplate in Heaven, the face of God’s divine mercy, is to look at our journey, the pilgrimage in this world towards the heavenly homeland”, he justified.
Father Correia Hilário said that, in the Church, there is no lack of obstinate and even rebellious sons and daughters, but it is in the saints that she recognizes her characteristic traits and, precisely, in them she savors her deepest glory.
The Catholic reverend pointed out that the day is one of hope, like the leaven that enlarges the soul, although there are difficult moments in life.
On that day, the priest explained, one of the readings from that time is taken from the book of Revelation, in its 7th chapter and 9th verse, which describes the saints as “an enormous multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and languages”.
The priest says that the Gospel of this feast announces the Beatitudes, in which Jesus says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; the afflicted; the meek; those who hunger and thirst for justice; the merciful; the pure in heart; peacemakers and those who are persecuted.”
Father Hilário said that today’s liturgy invites Christians to share the heavenly joy of the saints and to savor their joy.
“The saints are not a small caste of the elect, but an innumerable multitude, to which today’s liturgy exhorts us to raise our gaze”, concluded the priest.
It should be noted that tomorrow, the Catholic Church celebrates the Day of the Dead.
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