There are Saints and there are saints. This year, Pope Francis canonized 14 new Saints. Some were martyred for their faith; some served the church. All lived faithful lives and are held up as an example to us all. Francis ended the ceremony with a call to prayer so that “we too can follow Christ, follow Him in service, and become witnesses of hope for the world.” I don’t always agree with the pontiff, but amen to that sound sentiment.

On November 1, we celebrate the solemnity of All Saints Day. We remember the Saints and their lives and think about how we might serve and sacrifice for our faith. Some of us have been named after Saints. Some of us who have gone through the Catholic rite of confirmation have selected a Saint whom we feel we might emulate and added that name to our own.

But we also remember the saints. Those not elevated in the church, but who, since their passing, can be found Rejoicing in Paradise. All Saints Day is as personal as it is holy. My grandparents, my parents, and their siblings are all saints. They were not perfect people; they were sinners who struggled to walk in the light.

Image by Fra Angelico. Public domain.

I have a sibling who is a saint, gone far too early of cancer at 44. I have another one I never met—an innocent soul lost to miscarriage toward the end of a difficult gestation. One day, I will be a saint, a thought which fills me with nearly inexpressible joy.

Beyond the personal, let us remember the millions of saints who ought to still be with us: The innocent souls whose bodies were destroyed before they could draw their first breath. Pitiable addicts whose drugs were laced with too much fentanyl that was brought illegally into this country. Victims of murder and car crashes at the hands of migrants who should not have been here. Indeed, the thousands lost as they were making their way toward us, enticed by promises of good healthcare, a higher standard of living, and freedom.

Despairing veterans who were lost in a sea of indifference to their suffering. Those who passed from the effects of homelessness because some people think the mentally ill should be able to choose to sleep in their own feces on the sidewalk. The many lives lost due to the failure to prosecute and incarcerate criminals.

It’s a funny coincidence that every four years, All Saints Day coincides with our presidential election season. This year, many Americans are still smarting from the deaths of loved ones who were exposed to COVID-19 by politicians who warehoused the infected with the fragile, uninfected elderly. Young people are dropping dead of heart conditions on playing fields because they were required to take an mRNA shot to play sports or keep their athletic scholarship. Too many are dying too soon these days.

At first, we didn’t know the potential for deadly outcomes with this new gene tampering methodology, but now we do and yet some authorities still require it to hold some jobs. Those shots, at least in my home state, are being pushed hard on the populace down to the age of six months—not to mention the global excess deaths in countries that mandated and pushed those shots.

My favorite C.S. Lewis passage is from his essay The Weight of Glory. In it he talks about the transformation eternal life brings upon us. He says,

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.

As we honor the saints, those who have gone before us, we must be emboldened to see and enhance the lives of the potential saints all around us. In this election season, think of the dead, think of the living, think of what is best for ourselves and our neighbors, and vote accordingly. We are, indeed, the hope for the world.

Anony Mee is the nom de blog of a retired public servant who X-tweets at oh_yeahMee.