After bringing her neophytes together on successive days at St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, St. Peter's, St. Paul's, St. Laurence's, and the Twelve Apostles, the Church to-day made a Station at the basilica dedicated to all the Martyrs and to their Queen, where was made most manifest the triumph of Christ over paganism. For the Pantheon, the temple consecrated to the worship of all the gods, was in the seventh century dedicated to Mary and to the martyrs of the Catacombs, a large number of whose bones Boniface IV caused to be transferred to this basilica. The feast of the dedication of this church soon afterwards became known as the Feast of All Saints.
The Introit, the Collect and the Epistle remind us that the covenant established by God with Noe and his seed after their escape from the Wood, and later renewed with Moses and his people after their passage through the Red Sea, is a figure of the new covenant under which the neophytes were brought from the baptismal font unto the adoption of children of God. Jesus on the cross virtually killed sin (Alleluia, Epistle), and by His resurrection, of which the apostles were witnesses (Gospel), He gave us the life of grace. Baptism brought home to our souls this twofold effect of life and death. Let us ever remain faithful to it.
The Lord brought them out in safety, alleluia, whilst the sea overwhelmed their enemies, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. * Attend, O My people, to My law: incline your ears to the words of My mouth.
(Psalm 77:53,1 from the Introit of Mass)
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui Paschale sacramentum in reconciliationis humanae foedere contulisti: da mentibus nostris; ut, quod professione celebramus, imitemur effectu.
O almighty and everlasting God, who didst bestow the Paschal sacrament in the covenant of man's reconciliation, grant that we may show forth in our lives what we profess outwardly in our faith.
(Collect)
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