Daily Reflection Solemnity of All Saints

We have just wrapped up October, the month dedicated to the Holy Rosary, and many of us are eager to begin Christmas planning, if we haven’t already. Before I launch into Christmas mode myself, which I’m hoping includes a lot of sewing and baking, I want to reflect on the reason I started praying the Rosary every day. I must accredit that to the intercession of Pope St. John Paul II.

The saints desire for us to know God more deeply. In our first reading today, St. John quotes the saints, “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb” (Revelation 7:10). They want us to share our eternal lives with God as they do, and many saints, while on earth, claimed a sure way to Heaven was through the Rosary.

Like many Catholics, I found the Rosary on my mind often, loved praying to Mary, but told myself the daily 20-minute prayer wasn’t for me. I was too busy running around for doctor appointments and going on spontaneous job interviews for a new career. In short, I made the excuse that the Rosary was for other people.

Little did I know that God was calling me, Jenny Hubert, to pray a centuries-old chaplet each day. This June, I visited The National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, known for its dedication to the Blessed Mother. Pope John Paul II blessed the Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa, which now resides in a lower chapel of the same name. Naturally, I felt Pope St. John Paul II’s presence everywhere, and I asked for his guidance to open my heart to God’s big plans for my life. I once again committed to saying the Rosary more often, perhaps for a week straight—but I didn’t stop.

I continued the Rosary because I saw and felt God opening my heart to new career opportunities, ones I had previously discarded. I realized that holy servants like John Paul II recommended the Rosary not because of its repetitive motion and sacrificial giving of time to God, but because we surrender our will to God and ask Him to work through us.

November 1 isn’t just the unofficial start to Christmas. This November 1, we ask the saints how to live out holiness through our individual vocations. They will intercede for us because they desire our salvation.