Today is “All Hallows Eve”. Tomorrow, November 1st, is the Feast of All Saints. There is a good reason why it is a Holy Day of Obligation.
In this modern world it seems as though the torch has been passed to a new generation. By that I mean that , for example, when it comes to the saints, people are more interested in a Gen-Z saint than an early 19th-century bishop. In a nun who died 20-plus years ago, than another 19th century religious. Unfortunately the process of canonizing a saint is expensive. Thus, some of those on track for 
canonization are not only there becasue of their holiness, but because there is a great deal of money behind them. All that being said, we are at the point where those who WE think should be canonized perhaps may never be, and that is okay. It is important that we venerate those who inspire us the most. As for this site, we honor those who served the early Church in Indiana. That includes Mother Theodore Guerin, our own Indiana saint. It includes the first bishop of our diocese, Servant of God, Simon Gabriel Brute, who may never be canonized, but who can still be venerated privately. It consists of a number of martyrs of charity who also will never be canonized. It includes a multitude of members of the so-called “laity” who sacrificed their lives in their tireless efforts to bring the Catholic faith to the Indiana wilderness. So, celebrate this Feast of All Saints and All Souls in the best way you can and honor all those, canonized, or not who have gone before us marked by the sign of faith!!
Here is a prayer from the lovely prayerbook The Rural Life Prayerbook, written and compiled by Alban J. Dachauer, S.J. and printed by the National Catholic Rural Life Conference in 1956.
Prayer:
TODAY, dear friends in heaven, we celebrate your feast. We celebrate again the feasts of all the saints we know, and whom we honor day by day through the year. But we also honor today all the saints in heaven whom we do not know. We can not help thinking, on this day, that no one of us lacks a model to follow in one of you. We look around us at the familiar persons and things and activities that fill our every day lives, and we find that they are little different from the persons, things, and activities that filled your lives. We have the same human nature, wounded by the sin of Adam and Eve, but strengthened marvelously by grace, and fed and sanctified by the sacraments and prayer. We have exactly the same sacraments that you had, we have the same Christ, the same Blessed Mother, the same trials, sickness, pain, temptation, the same joys, pleasures, and happiness that crowded your lives. Then it must be true that, with the same means, we should be able to work out our lives in the same holiness and sanctity as yours, dear saints. Help us to do this. Help us to see the opportunities for holiness that fill our everyday lives. Obtain for us, by your prayers, the deep understanding and appreciation of spiritual things that were yours. Help us to see, too, in the beauty of the world in which we live, some slight mirroring of the eternal beauty which you now see, as you gaze on God. But let us not be deceived into thinking that this earthly beauty, this worldly pleasure, is an end in itself. Let us use it wisely and moderately, our hearts always yearning to come at last to the final beauty and joy, the possession of God Himself, with you, in heaven. Amen 1
- Prayer Source: Rural Life Prayerbook by Alban J. Dachauer, S.J., National Catholic Rural Life Conference, 4625 Beaver Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50310 ncrlc.com, 1956[↩]
