Cardinal Tobin:
We are all called to be saints
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Vol. 7. No. 6
My dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
During the first two days of November, the Church calls our attention to what the Second Vatican Council termed “the universal call to holiness.” We Catholics believe that every human being is made in the image and likeness of God, and all of us—no matter who we are or what our personal history may be—are called to be holy.
What does it mean to be holy? According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “the desire for God is written in the human heart” (#27). We human beings are meant to search for God, to find him and to become united with him—both here on Earth and in our heavenly home.
Holiness is the quality of our union with God, the indication of our closeness to him. Holy women and men are close to God. That’s why we call them “saints,” which comes from the Latin word sanctus or holy.
In his homily for the canonization of two young saints, “Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati and Saint Carlo Acutis: a young man from the early 20th century and a teenager from our own day, both in love with Jesus and ready to give everything for him” (see selection below), Pope Leo XIV recalls the conversion of another young man, Saint Francis of Assisi:
Jesus appeared to [Francis] along the way and asked him to reflect on what he was doing. Coming to his senses, he asked God a simple question: “Lord, what do you want me to do?”
We know that the Lord answered Francis saying, “Rebuild my Church,” and that the young man gave up everything to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and help revitalize the Church in his day.
In his encyclical Spe Salvi, On Christian Hope, (see selection below) Pope Benedict XVI writes: “Life is a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives.” They are the lights of hope, the Holy Father writes, because they point us to Jesus Christ, “the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history” (#49).
Saints shine with the light of Christ. Many of the saints have been officially recognized by the Church through a process that results in the solemn proclamation that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God’s grace. We witnessed this recently with the canonization of Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati and Saint Carlo Acutis on September 7, 2025.
But during the last 2,000 years, many other holy women and men have given themselves wholeheartedly to Jesus Christ without being declared saints by the Church. These are the saints we celebrate on Nov. 1, the Solemnity of All Saints.
These saints—both known and unknown—are people who have lived good and holy lives. They are lights of hope because they point us to Jesus Christ, the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history.
All of us are called to holiness, to closeness to God, but unfortunately most of us find ourselves further away from God than we would like to be. That’s why Christ gives us the sacraments—especially the Eucharist and the sacrament of penance—to help us in our daily struggles on the way to holiness. We are all called to be close to God, but for many of us the journey is a long and difficult one.
Thanks be to God, his grace and mercy are endless. Our loving and merciful God never gives up on us. Even after we die, we Christians believe that it is still possible to atone for our sins, to grow in holiness and come closer to God. That’s why we pray for those who have died.
It’s also why the Church celebrates the feast of All Souls on Nov. 2. We are all called to become holy—both the living and the dead—and the grace of our Lord Jesus is not confined to this world, but can reach even into the state of being we call purgatory, to touch the hearts of those “poor souls” who must undergo a process of purification before being fully united with God.
In our desire to be united with God, we look to the saints to show us the way. How do saints model for us the way to be close to God? Obviously, through the witness of their daily lives, the choices they make, their willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others, and their devotion to Christ. Their words and examples are helpful guides to daily Christian living.
But what is the secret of their success in navigating the dark and stormy seas of life? Why are the saints successful at living good and holy lives when so many of us struggle and fail?
The answer, I believe, is prayer—“an exercise of desire” as Saint Augustine describes it. Saints are men and women who know how to pray, how to be close to God and communicate with him from the heart. They are people who, in times of difficulty, as well as in good times, raise their minds and hearts to the Lord. The saints seek God’s will in their lives. They share with him their hopes and frustrations and sometimes even their loneliness, anger, and fear. Through their prayer, their attentive listening even more than the words they speak, the holy men and women we call saints are in constant contact with God.
As we recall the holy people—living and deceased—who serve as stars guiding us to Christ, let us pray for the grace to let God’s love and mercy touch our hearts and bring us closer to Him who is our true heart’s desire.
Sincerely yours in Christ the Redeemer,
Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R.
Archbishop of Newark
Pope Benedict XVI:
The intimate relationship between Prayer and Hope
Saint Augustine, in a homily on the First Letter of John, describes very beautifully the intimate relationship between prayer and hope. He defines prayer as an exercise of desire. Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched. “By delaying [his gift], God strengthens our desire; through desire he enlarges our soul and by expanding it he increases its capacity [for receiving him]”.
Augustine refers to Saint Paul, who speaks of himself as straining forward to the things that are to come (cf. Phil 3:13). He then uses a very beautiful image to describe this process of enlargement and preparation of the human heart. “Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey [a symbol of God’s tenderness and goodness]; but if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey?” The vessel, that is your heart, must first be enlarged and then cleansed, freed from the vinegar and its taste. This requires hard work and is painful, but in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined [26].
Even if Augustine speaks directly only of our capacity for God, it is nevertheless clear that through this effort by which we are freed from vinegar and the taste of vinegar, not only are we made free for God, but we also become open to others. It is only by becoming children of God, that we can be with our common Father. To pray is not to step outside history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness. When we pray properly, we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well. In prayer we must learn what we can truly ask of God—what is worthy of God.
We must learn that we cannot pray against others. We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and comfortable things that we desire at this moment—that meagre, misplaced hope that leads us away from God. We must learn to purify our desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. God sees through them, and when we come before God, we too are forced to recognize them. “But who can discern his errors? Clear me from hidden faults” prays the Psalmist (Ps 19:12 [18:13]).
Failure to recognize my guilt, the illusion of my innocence, does not justify me and does not save me, because I am culpable for the numbness of my conscience and my incapacity to recognize the evil in me for what it is. If God does not exist, perhaps I have to seek refuge in these lies, because there is no one who can forgive me; no one who is the true criterion. Yet my encounter with God awakens my conscience in such a way that it no longer aims at self-justification, and is no longer a mere reflection of me and those of my contemporaries who shape my thinking, but it becomes a capacity for listening to the Good itself.
(A selection from the Encyclical Letter of Pope Benedict XVI Spe Salvi, On Christian Hope, #33.)
A Message from Pope Leo XIV:
In the one Christ we are one
Jesus, too, in the Gospel, speaks to us of a plan to which we must commit wholeheartedly. He says: “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:27); and again: “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions” (v. 33). He calls us to abandon ourselves without hesitation to the adventure that he offers us, with the intelligence and strength that comes from his Spirit, that we can receive to the extent that we empty ourselves of the things and ideas to which we are attached, in order to listen to his word.
Many young people, over the centuries, have had to face this crossroad in their lives. Think of Saint Francis of Assisi, like Solomon, he too was young and rich, thirsty for glory and fame. That is why he went to war, hoping to be knighted and adorned with honors. But Jesus appeared to him along the way and asked him to reflect on what he was doing.
Coming to his senses, he asked God a simple question: “Lord, what do you want me to do?” (Legend of the Three Companions, cap. II: Fonti Francescane, 1401). From there, he changed his life and began to write a different story: the wonderful story of holiness that we all know, stripping himself of everything to follow the Lord (cf. Lk 14:33), living in poverty and preferring the love of his brothers and sisters, especially the weakest and smallest, to his father’s gold, silver and precious fabrics.
How many similar saints we could recall! Sometimes we portray them as great figures, forgetting that for them it all began when, while still young, they said “yes” to God and gave themselves to him completely, keeping nothing for themselves. Saint Augustine recounts that, in the “tortuous and tangled knot” of his life, a voice deep within him said: “I want you” (Confessions, II, 10,18). God gave him a new direction, a new path, a new reason, in which nothing of his life was lost.
In this setting, today we look to Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati and Saint Carlo Acutis: a young man from the early 20th century and a teenager from our own day, both in love with Jesus and ready to give everything for him.
Pier Giorgio encountered the Lord through school and church groups — Catholic Action, the Conferences of Saint Vincent, the FUCI (Italian Catholic University Federation), the Dominican Third Order — and he bore witness to God with his joy of living and of being a Christian in prayer, friendship and charity. This was so evident that seeing him walking the streets of Turin with carts full of supplies for the poor, his friends renamed him “Frassati Impresa Trasporti” (Frassati Transport Company)! Even today, Pier Giorgio’s life is a beacon for lay spirituality. For him, faith was not a private devotion, but it was driven by the power of the Gospel and his membership in ecclesial associations. He was also generously committed to society, contributed to political life and devoted himself ardently to the service of the poor.
Carlo, for his part, encountered Jesus in his family, thanks to his parents, Andrea and Antonia — who are here today with his two siblings, Francesca and Michele — and then at school, and above all in the sacraments celebrated in the parish community. He grew up naturally integrating prayer, sport, study and charity into his days as a child and young man.
Both Pier Giorgio and Carlo cultivated their love for God and for their brothers and sisters through simple acts, available to everyone: daily Mass, prayer, and especially Eucharistic Adoration. Carlo used to say: “In front of the sun, you get a tan. In front of the Eucharist, you become a saint!” And again: “Sadness is looking at yourself; happiness is looking at God. Conversion is nothing more than shifting your gaze from below to above; a simple movement of the eyes is enough.” Another essential practice for them was frequent Confession. Carlo wrote: “The only thing we really have to fear is sin;” and he marveled because — in his own words — “people are so concerned with the beauty of their bodies and do not care about the beauty of their souls.” Finally, both had a great devotion to the saints and to the Virgin Mary, and they practiced charity generously. Pier Giorgio said: “Around the poor and the sick, I see a light that we do not have” (Nicola Gori, Al prezzo della vita: L’Osservatore romano, 11 February 2021). He called charity “the foundation of our religion” and, like Carlo, he practiced it above all through small, concrete gestures, often hidden, living what Pope Francis called “a holiness found in our next-door neighbors” (Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, 7).
Even when illness struck them and cut short their young lives, not even this stopped them nor prevented them from loving, offering themselves to God, blessing him and praying to him for themselves and for everyone. One day Pier Giorgio said: “The day of my death will be the most beautiful day of my life” (Irene Funghi, I giovani assieme a Frassati: un compagno nei nostri cammini tortuosi: Avvenire, 2 agosto 2025). In his last photo, which shows him climbing a mountain in the Val di Lanzo, with his face turned towards his goal, he wrote: “Upwards” (Ibid). Moreover, Carlo, who was even younger than Pier Giorgio, loved to say that heaven has always been waiting for us, and that to love tomorrow is to give the best of our fruit today.
(A selection from the homily of Pope Leo XIV on the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 7, 2025, the canonizations of Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati and Saint Carlo Acutis.)
My Prayer for You
Please join me in this prayer for All Saints, November 1st:
Loving Father, we long to share the communion of charity that the saints in heaven have with you. Make us holy. Deepen our desire for sanctity and let that desire govern everything we say and do. Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
And for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, November 2:
O most gentle heart of Jesus, ever consumed with burning love for the poor captive souls in purgatory, have mercy on the souls of your departed servants. O merciful Savior, send your holy angels to conduct them to a place of refreshment, light, and peace.
Amen.