The Padua Community gathered as one to celebrate the Feast of All Saints Day with an all-school Mass in the Padua Gym today.
Friar JohnPaul Cafiero, ofm presided over the liturgy and spoke about the importance of seeking sainthood in our every-day lives. He reflected on the Gospel reading where Jesus listed The Beatitudes and what it means to be blessed.
“It’s a litany of what it means to be blessed, what it means to be holy,” Cafiero said. “It’s the blueprint for living the Christian life in the context of today’s Feast of All Saints. This is how you become a saint, but do we really understand what that means as we mark All Saints Day?
“It is really tempting to put the saints literally on a pedestal. Just look around. Look around in our churches, our chapel, we see saints in stained glass, in wood, in marble. They’re plaster figures that we put on a shelf and we decorate with flowers or adorn with a halo. We collect them as holy cards. We view them as icons, but to think of the saints that way alone can reduce that to merely decoration and risk that this feast is not necessary. But let me assure you, this feast is necessary.”
According to Cafiero, the Feast of All Saints is a challenge to all followers of Jesus Christ to be better versions of themselves and share their gifts with the world in ways that bring meaningful, positive results.
“It dares you to elevate yourself and other people,” Cafiero said. “It dares you to be a saint. Now, some of us hear that and may laugh. Yeah, sainthood is a noble goal and ideal, but is it something that we can realistically reach? The short answer is yes because the great truth about the saints, something we so easily forget is they are just like us, flesh and blood, strong and weak.
“There were people of desires and longings, ambitions and disappointments. Some proud, some pretty strange, but they were simple sinners like you and me. That’s how they began, but that was not the whole story because the fact is nobody is born a saint. It’s something you have to become.”
To drive home the point that all people are called and possess the ability to be saints, Cafiero used real-life examples of those who stumbled in their lives before rising up and letting faith in Jesus guide their paths.
Cafiero mentioned St. Margaret of Cortona, who was a mistress for nine years and had a child before finding her path toward God. Also, he outlined the journey of Benedict Joseph Labre, who is the patron saint of the homeless. For more modern references, Cafiero spoke about the divergent journeys of Dorothy Day and Carlo Acutis.
“It reminds us of our great potential, the potential that lies within each of us, the potential for holiness,” Cafiero said. “It is a promise fulfilled by countless people we venerate today. Our models, our companions, our inspirations, our guides, all the saints, they give us hope because they assure us again and again that no one is born a saint, but every one of us, by the grace of God, can become saints.”
During the procession and recession, students carried photos of saints, who were chosen to represent each department at Padua.
The following saints were chosen to represent different academic departments throughout the remainder of the 2024-2025 school year:
- St. Angela of Foligno (English)
- St. Anthony of Padua (World Languages)
- Franz Liszt (Fine Arts)*
- St. Bonaventure (Theology)
- Luca Pacioli (Business)
- St. Clare (Counseling)
- St. Thomas More (Social Studies)
- St. Joseph of Cupertino (Learning Support Services)
- Roger Bacon (Science)
- John Peckham (Mathematics)
- St. Marianne Cope (Health)
- Blessed Carlo Acutis (Computer Science)
*Received minor orders
Prior to the celebration of the Feast of All Saints Day, the students were led in a reflection about what it truly means to experience something in the world. The discussion centered around an interpretation of St. Bonaventure’s quote, “To know much and taste nothing, of what use is that?”
After Mass, Principal Bob DiRocco reflected on those words, as well as the points on sainthood made by Cafiero in the homily, and how it all relates to Padua’s theme for the year: “Elevate.”
“No one came in here in August and said, ‘We want to be perfect,’” DiRocco told the nearly 800 Mass attendees. “We said, ‘We want to elevate and get a little better every day.’ I’ll tell you, from the opening mass to our feast day mass to today, it’s been a little bit better every day.
“When you look in the mirror, what do you see? You see what you see when you contemplate Christ, simple sinners who make a choice to say yes to God.”
The next time the Padua Community gathers for Mass, it will be in celebration of the annual Christmas For Others campaign. DiRocco left the students, faculty and staff with one final reminder to be grateful for the gifts in their lives and celebrate them, even if by simply saying, “Thank You.”
“What if all you have today is what you were grateful for yesterday?” DiRocco said. “We are in a season of Thanksgiving, and I talked about this in August. What do you need to get rid of that’s weighing you down and what you need to fill your life with to elevate your heart and your mind towards heaven? That’s what we celebrate today, elevating our hearts and our minds to choose to be saints.
“I would ask you a little bit every day to think about that for which you are grateful, and to make sure if those things are people that you say, ‘Thank you, mom. Thank you, dad. Thank you, brother or sister, or teacher or coach,’ because if all you have today is what you were grateful for yesterday, what we do have?”
