I remember a couple of years ago as I arrived in the airport of New Orleans, there is a massive statue of Louis Armstrong with his trumpet and every time I think of Louis Armstrong, the words of his song comes to mind: “When the saints go marching in”. I’ve had the wonderful privilege of celebrating mass in the church dedicated to St. Vincent De Paul, the heart of St. Vincent now resides in the Daughters of Charity chapel, just outside Paris, in the shrine of the miraculous medal. As I was in the sacristy getting ready for mass there was a picture of him on the wall and before going in to the church, I looked at the picture and said a little prayer. ‘St. Vincent, help me to celebrate this mass as you would celebrate it’. But it seemed he smiled at me and said no; ‘You must not try to celebrate like me, you must celebrate as yourself. I had my time I said my masses, Jesus needs you now, so do your best. It was a very nice way of saying that Jesus does not want us to be like someone else, he loves us for who we are, with our defects, our struggles, our faults, our history. Jesus does not divide his friends into premier league, first division, second division, winners or losers. For Jesus there are no losers, Each person is unique, and has a special place in his heart. He will never walk past our door; on the contrary, he stands at our door, and knocks, and will stay there as long as it takes for us to open the door and welcome him in. This Sunday, we celebrate the feast of All Saints, we honour all the saints, not just not just the great and famous ones, but also the silent and the little ones, the unknown ones, the ones we never heard of. Turning to particular favourite saint in time of need – when you lose something your turn to St. Anthony; when you are ready to give up on a hopeless situation, you turn to St. Jude; setting out on a journey we have our St. Christopher medal – reminds us that we are not alone, an acknowledgment that there is a life beyond this one and we are connected to it. The saints we celebrate today are those who lived the beatitudes we hear in today’s Gospel, the poor in spirit, the sorrowful, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and those who suffer persecution. We ask them to pray for us. But let us not forget that Jesus longs for our friendship too; he needs me he needs you, As long as one of us has not opened our hearts to him, Jesus cannot be happy. There is one person in the gospel who teaches us this great lesson. It is a man who has wasted his life, and now he is dying as a criminal, but destiny would have it that he would die on the cross beside Jesus. Imagine the coincidence, that of all the people in the world, that you should be the one to die beside Jesus, on the cross. He heard the voice of Jesus and looked into his eyes, and became his friend. Jesus loves us the way we are. Maybe we are already great friend of Jesus, maybe we are not, but each one of us