Solemnity of All Saints, November 1, 2026

Jan van Eyck painted Revelation 7 as a meadow: a Lamb standing on an altar, a fountain running toward the viewer, and four companies of saints walking in from every edge of the panel, some of them carrying palms. That crowd, “which no man could number,” is the subject of this Sunday, because the Solemnity of All Saints falls on November 1 this year and takes the place of the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time. The readings were chosen for the feast, and all four belong together: the sealed and white-robed multitude of Revelation, the pure of heart who ascend the Lord’s hill in Psalm 24, John’s children of God who “shall see him as he is,” and the Beatitudes, which the Catechism says “have begun in the lives of the Virgin Mary and all the saints.” Peter Williamson calls the vision in Revelation “our earliest and most beautiful picture of the life in heaven.” Augustine reads the Beatitudes as a ladder of the Spirit’s gifts. Chrysostom calls them a “golden chain.” This guide follows that chain from the mountain in Galilee to the throne of the Lamb.

The Readings

First Reading: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14

Then I saw another angel ascend from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God upon their foreheads.” And I heard the number of the sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand sealed, out of every tribe of the sons of Israel,

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.” Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and whence have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6

R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.

The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein; for he has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers.

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false.

He will receive blessing from the Lord, and vindication from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.

Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-3

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12a

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

Scriptural Analysis

Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14: The Sealed and the Multitude No One Could Count

This year the Solemnity of All Saints falls on a Sunday, and because it outranks a Sunday in Ordinary Time, it takes the place of the Thirty-First Sunday. The feast is older than most people in the pew even realize. The Catholic Encyclopedia traces it to the persecution of Diocletian, when so many Christians died for Christ that the Church could no longer give each martyr a day of his own and “appointed a common day for all.” Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Roman Pantheon to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs on May 13, 609 or 610; Gregory III dedicated a chapel in Saint Peter’s to all the saints and fixed the anniversary on November 1; and Gregory IV extended that celebration to the whole Church in the ninth century.1 The feast began with a problem a preacher still faces: there are too many holy people to name them all. Revelation 7 is the Scripture the Church reaches for to describe these holy people, and Peter Williamson calls its second vision “our earliest and most beautiful picture of the life in heaven that awaits faithful believers after death.”2

The chapter is an interlude. Six seals have been opened, and before the seventh is broken, John sees two visions: the first (7:1-8) a flashback in which God protects his people before their trial; the second (7:9-17) a preview of “what awaits God’s people on the other side of the great tribulation of this life.” Wilfrid Harrington, in the Sacra Pagina volume, is careful about what the seal protects. In Revelation, he writes, sealing “does not symbolize protection from tribulation and death but means being sustained in and through tribulation.” The sealed are “caught up” in the tribulation, helpless as their Lord was on his cross, and “John is never a purveyor of cheap grace.”3 Even for the holiest of people, suffering still remains a part of life. Take a quick tour of the lives of the Saints, and that fact will become apparent. A preacher who promises his people that holiness will keep them safe from suffering is reading a different book.

The seal is a sign of ownership: a brand marking, so to speak. Williamson notes that Roman recruits were often tattooed on the hand or forearm with their general’s name, and he points to Ezekiel 9, where an angel marks the foreheads of the faithful with the Hebrew letter tav (tahv), which in its old form was shaped like a cross. Bede saw the same thing in Christ: the Lord carries “the standard of the cross, by which he seals the foreheads of his own.”4 Anyone who has watched a priest trace the cross on an infant’s forehead at the church door has watched Revelation 7:3 happening.