Saints beget saints. That’s to say: all saints make more saints. And that the conversion entailed in becoming saintly is highly contagious. Let me share some examples from a recent pilgrimage to Northern France to illustrate this beautiful truth. Hopefully these images will help us enter more fully, and more gratefully, into this solemnity of the vast array of saintly company we celebrate this day.

The stained glass windows in Chartres cathedral are stunning. One of its great rose windows is actually inspired by that scene in our first reading from the Book of Revelation. It has Christ at its centre surrounded by concentric circles of angels and saints who all seem to be converging on him as their centre of gravity. It captures the arresting image in that reading which describes the saints as ‘encircling’ the throne of God. It expresses, first of all, how saints are those who are centred on Jesus Christ. But also, how all those who are centred on him are at the same time drawn into a harmonious alignment with one another. In that window the saints are playing musical instruments, as if to underline the importance each one plays in this great symphony of praise. We call this sacred orchestra ‘the communion of saints.’

Then in the windows directly below are the four major prophets in the Old Testament: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel and sitting on their shoulders the four evangelists from the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It conveys beautifully how with the full revelation of Christ those evangelists can now see so much further than the prophets previously did. But at the same it seems to invite us to ask ourselves ‘on whose shoulders am I sitting?’ ‘Whose vision and values have inspired and enabled my present Christian outlook and perspective?’ ‘Whose infectious influence has helped to form the foundations on which I have chosen to build my life?’ These are some of all the saints we give thanks to God for today.

Yet another striking image in that same cathedral is the Jesse window. In it the ancestors of Jesus are depicted on the branches of a great tree emerging from the figure of Jesse, the father of King David, with Jesus on its topmost branch at the apex of the window. It captures graphically how Christ didn’t appear out of nowhere. We can trace his family tree. Similarly, saints don’t come from thin air. Again, this window invites us to ask who the main figures on our faith tree are, the one that depicts our own spiritual ancestry. Who are the family members, friends, former parishioners, teachers, and influencers we are indebted to in terms of our faith? These are some of all the saints we give thanks and praise to the Lord for on this feast.

On the same pilgrimage we visited the childhood home of St Thérèse of Lisieux. In the back garden of that house there is an aviary. In her autobiography Thérèse recalls how in her childhood she came across a little linnet orphaned from its parents. She took pity on it and put it in that aviary in which there was already a canary. Over time the linnet, being in such close proximity to its new companion, gradually began to imitate the canary’s song. Thérèse remembers the trouble it had at first, but finally, as she puts it, ‘the little thing’s efforts were crowned with success. For its song, whilst much softer, was absolutely identical to that of the canary.’ Thérèse uses this powerful image to describe the formative influence of one of her older sisters, Pauline, on her spiritual attitudes and outlook. Pauline would certainly appear on the branches of Thérèse’s faith tree, along with her parents who have now both been canonised. Her family is proof of this beautiful truth that saints beget saints.

Moreover, this is how things are meant to be in every parish family, which is likewise an important part of our Christian lineage. We are begetting each other, forming each other in Christlikeness. Today’s second reading spells out this likeness to Jesus as the ultimate goal of our discipleship. ‘We shall be like him’, says Saint John. That’s our joint aim and ambition. Tellingly the Russian word for saint literally means ‘very, very like’. And the Beatitudes which form the centrepiece of today’s Liturgy of the Word are quite strikingly a pen portrait of Our Lord. He is the Peacemaker, the Pure of Heart and the Meek and Merciful One we’re all being called increasingly to reflect. He’s the canary whose own song we’re all being invited to sing through our proximity to him. He’s the centre on whom we converge and around whom we are encircled at this Eucharist. He is ‘the Saint of saints’, as Saint Francis de Sales used to love to call him, who is begetting us all once more by his grace at this Holy Mass.