One of the most popular tourist attractions in Rome is the Pantheon, visited by over six millions of people each year. At nearly two thousand years old, it is the best-preserved ancient Roman structure, and is still the largest un-reinforced concrete dome in the world. During the Middle Ages, when engineers had forgotten how to make cement and build domes, the building took on a mystique that it has never lost.

Why was the Pantheon so important? The building was a symbol of one of the secrets to Roman power: After the Romans conquered a country, they would take that people’s gods into the pantheon, making them a part of their own pagan worship. (The word “pantheon” means “all the gods.”) Assimilation, not only of language and culture but even of religion, was the key to Roman dominance of the entire known world.

Christians were so fiercely persecuted by the Romans because we resisted this attempt at assimilation. Christians refused to offer even a grain of incense to the cult of the Roman gods and the Roman emperor (held to be a quasi-god). Most Romans didn’t care much about whether people believed in the existence of and worshiped Jupiter, Venus, and Apollos. But they did care that Christians did not want to assimilate into the cultural mainstream.

All of that, of course, changed with the collapse of Roman paganism after Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman empire in the year 380 A.D. For years the Pantheon was abandoned until the early 600s, when Pope St. Boniface IV decided to transform the space into a Christian church, now called “St. Mary and all the Martyrs.” The observance of the church’s dedication on May 13 was eventually transferred to November 1 and is now celebrated throughout the Christian world.

For the early Christians, the saints were an answer to the multiplicity of gods present in paganism. No longer did they need to appease all of the different gods in the pantheon for a good harvest, for long life, fertility, or so forth, but there was a new heavenly army at the ready to assist them, those who, in the words of the book of Revelation, “have survived the time of great distress; [and] have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.”

The saints were not distant deities who needed to be appeased by sacrifices, but rather the friends of believers who were ready to come to their aid. Holy Mother Church still holds this feast in so high regard that She requires our participation at Holy Mass on this day to remind us of this truth: that we are participants in the communion of the saints.

Tomorrow, the church militant – those of us here on earth – will gather to pray for the church suffering – the poor souls in purgatory – on the commemoration of All Souls. Today, we are here to sing the glories of that “great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue,” the saints. Throughout the year, we celebrate many of them on their dies natalis, their birthday – not their day of birth into this earthly life, but their birth into the life to come by their death.

Once, when I asked a kindergarten class, “What do you need to do to go to Heaven?”, one boy pointed out what few people think to mention, “You have to die.” We also gather here to celebrate all the saints to remind ourselves of what is to come. This earthly life is not the end, but only a test, a passage to the true life that is to come, the chance to pass through the tribulations of this life so that our souls, like the robes of the saints, might be washed a brilliant white in Christ’s most precious blood through the forgiveness of our sins.

Heaven is a place that inspires much confusion, but there is no reason for that to be so. St. John tells us today in the first reading what it will be like. In his vision of Heaven, he says that the saints and angels, “prostrated themselves before the throne, worshiped God, and exclaimed: ‘Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.’” The saints are not subjected to an eternity of boredom, but engage in the deepest fulfillment of the reason that God made each of us in the first place: They worship God.

God made us to give Him honor and glory. This means that the closest we can get to Heaven here on earth is the Holy Mass, where all the saints and angels still tremble with holy fear before the coming of the Lamb. This tells us something about the mystery of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – that what we experience here is something that is not of this world, something far above and beyond the normal experiences of our daily lives, just like the vision of Heaven that St. John describes to us today.

What, though, is Heaven? Heaven is so far beyond anything that we have ever experienced that it escapes the imagination. “Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness” (CCC 1024).

The Catechism states that, in Heaven, Christ makes us “partners in His glorification” (CCC 1026). Just as Christ is glorified by His Father, those who have been cleansed of their sins by Baptism and Confession will also be glorified in Heaven. The saints are not mere spectators in Heaven: They share in the very glory of Christ.

St. Bede wrote eloquently about this reality: “Let us consider that Paradise is our country, as well as theirs; and so we shall begin to reckon the patriarchs as our fathers. Why do we not, then, hasten and run, that we may behold our country and salute our parents? A great multitude of dear ones is there expecting us; a vast and mighty crowd of parents, brothers, and children, secure now of their own safety, anxious yet for our salvation, long that we may come … and embrace them, to that joy which will be common to us and to them.” The saints in Heaven, even though we aren’t related biologically, are our true fathers and brothers in the Faith.

“Why do we not, then, hasten and run, that we may behold our country?” There are so many things in this life that keep us from hastening and running towards our true country, Heaven. How often have you thought that there is no hurry, that you can enjoy the pleasures of this life for a while, and that those of Heaven can wait? How many times have you fallen into lukewarmness about that which out to be the principal goal of your life: to pursue with all the forces you can muster, life forever in Heaven, by rejecting here and now the allure of sin? This is why we all need the Saints to remind us of our heavenly goal. That great multitude of the saints is waiting for us, longing for us to join them in adoring God.

Even though the pleasures of this life can seem satisfying, the glory of God that awaits us in Heaven is greater than we can possibly imagine. St. Bede continues, “That beauty, that virtue, that glory, that magnificence, that majesty, surpasses every expression, every sense of the human mind. For it is greater than the glory of all saints; but to attain to that ineffable sight, and to be made radiant with the splendor of His face, it were worthwhile to suffer torment every day … so that we might behold Christ coming in glory, and be joined to the number of the saints.”

Ask all of the saints in heaven each day to intercede for you, so that your desire for your heavenly homeland might grow stronger. Even the desire for Heaven is already a gift from the Lord, and we need the Saints to obtain this grace for us. Thus, we can make our own the words of an ancient hymn to all the saints, “Oh you martyrs in purple, oh you shining confessors, call us out of exile into our heavenly reward.”

Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints!

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

Solemnity of All Saints, A.D. MMXXIV