11/01/2026
Deacon James Garza's Homily
Solemnity of All Saints, 1 November 2026
My brothers and sisters, today we look toward heaven and see a map of where we are meant to go. In the first reading from the book of revelation, Saint John looks up and sees a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people and tongue. Think about that image for a moment— Heaven is not a uniform room of identical people. It is a breathtaking, diverse landscape of completely different lives, backgrounds, and stories.
Yet, despite their differences, they are unified. They are standing together before the throne of God. How did a crowd that vast and that different achieve perfect communion? The answer is found, in how they lived on earth. They are the ones who followed the blueprint of the beatitudes. They are the Saints. When we think of saints, we often imagine flawless heroes painted on stained glass windows. But holiness is actually built in the messy, ordinary realities of our daily relationships. If we look closely at the beatitudes, Jesus teaches us today, we discover that holiness requires us to give up our defensive demands to be understood, and instead take up the courageous work of understanding others.
We live in a culture that is deeply defensive. We walk around carrying a silent, heavy burden: The desperate desire to be understood. We want our spouses to understand our exhaustion. We want our coworkers to understand our stress. We want people online to understand our opinions. When people don’t understand us, we feel lonely, isolated, or angry. We scream louder, we over-explain, or we retreat into defensive corners. We say to ourselves, until you apologize to me, until you see my side, until you get me— I am blocking my heart.
Jesus looks at our exhaustion, and on this mountain, he offers a completely different way to be happy. Look at the beatitudes through this lens:
1. Blessed are the merciful. Mercy is choosing to look past your own hurt to understand the weakness of the person who hurt you.
2. Blessed are the peacemakers. A peacemaker is not someone who wins an argument. A peacemaker is someone who builds a bridge of understanding where anger has dug a trench.
The Saints were not people who went through life, demanding that everyone validate them. They follow the path of the famous prayer of Saint Francis: Grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand.
How do we find the strength to do this? How can we stop demanding that everyone understands us?
St. John gives us the secret in our second reading: “ see what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are.”
The reason we can stop fighting so hard for human validation is that you are already perfectly understood by your Heavenly Father. God knows you’re hidden hurts. He knows the context behind your mistakes. He knows your intentions when your words come out wrong. You do not have to exhaust yourself, forcing the world to “get” you, because the creator of the universe already holds you, knows you, and loves you completely.
When you rest in that security, you are freed from your defenses. You finally have the emotional and spiritual space to look at your neighbor and say: I don’t need to fight for myself right now. Tell me about you. Let me understand your heart.”
This week, as we honor, the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, let us bring their heavenly path down into our earthly lives. Here is your challenge for the week ahead:
Identify one relationship in your life right now, where there is tension, distance, or misunderstanding. It might be with a teenager at home, a difficult boss, a family member with different views, or a spouse you’ve been passing like a ship in the night.
In your next conversation with that person, intentionally lay down your defenses. Stop trying to prove your point. Stop defending your actions.
Instead, ask a question and simply listen. Ask: can you tell me more about how you’re feeling about this? Or help me understand your perspective.— Try to see the world through their eyes before you ask them to see it through yours.
It is a sacrifice— A tiny death to our pride. But it is exactly how ordinary people become saints. By choosing to understand rather than demanding to be understood, we wash our robes in the grace of Jesus, we bring peace to a broken world, and we take our place in the great multitude walking toward the kingdom of heaven.
It is our destiny to become saints but we must persevere by maintaining a state of friendship and grace with Christ, ensuring entry into the heavenly kingdom—which is what it means to be a saint.
