Today we contemplate this mystery: those who have died for Christ, with Christ, and in Christ are alive with him and, because we are members of Christ’s body and they are glorious members of the Lord’s glorious body, we are in communion with each other, the pilgrim Church with the heavenly Church, and together form the one and complete body of the Lord. Today the scent of incense rises from our assemblies, a sign of our bonds with the Church above, the heavenly Jerusalem, which awaits the completion of the number of its children and which is living, glorious in God’s presence with Christ forever.

This is the powerful call that sounds for us today: to rediscover th saint at our side, to feel a part of the same body. Consciousness of this presence has nourished the faith and the way of holiness of many believers, from the first centuries on to our own days: men and women who were hidden, but able to live daily the conscious resistance to ever new idolatries, in a patient submission to God’s will, with a wise love for every human being, image of the invisible God.