We Celebrate The Feast of All Saints Because We Want To Join Them

Today should be a holiday as it commemorates those who repopulate heaven from the demonic diaspora

My favorite story of All Saints Day might, at first blush, seem to be a secular one: I want you to know the REAL story behind The New Orleans Saints NFL franchise and what it says about my beloved birthplace “the cradle of Catholicism in the Mississippi River Valley”, The Catholic Church as THE driver of the events of our lives and All Saints Day.

When Commissioner Pete Rozelle called to tell [Dave] Dixon that the NFL was coming to New Orleans it was Dixon who suggested that the announcement be made on Nov. 1, All Saints day. At the time, the team did not have a name, or an owner, but Dixon pushed hard for the name “Saints.” Why? “Because I knew it would be free publicity every time the song was played.”

A local law firm urged one of its Houston customers to apply for ownership. Eventually, the league accepted the application of the oil-rich Mecom family to own the team. Poppa Mecom put his 28 year old son, John, in charge. Dixon admits that at first he did not like young John Mecom because of his playboy image, but it was the new owner who would have the final approval of the team’s identity.And that leads to Dixon’s favorite story.

[John] Mecom began to have second thoughts about the name. One evening, a Mecom aide had dinner with Dixon to explain that his boss was concerned that the name might seem sacrilegious. Dixon always recalled the next moment gleefully. Philip Hannan, the Archbishop of New Orleans, happened to be in the restaurant. Dixon apologetically interrupted the archbishop and posed the question. Would calling the team “Saints” be sacrilegious? “No,” the bishop answered. “Besides, I have a premonition that this team is going to need all the help it can get.”

At that moment, as though baptized by the bishop, the New Orleans Saints came into being. Hannan was right. The team would have some tough times in pursuit of glory, though it has always been blessed by the vision of Dave Dixon. [emphasis mine]

National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle (left) announced that New Orleans has been awarded the league's 16th franchise during a press conference on Nov. 1, 1966 in New Orleans. Next to Rozelle is Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs who helped push the pro-merger bill through the House and at far right is Louisiana Gov. John McKeithen. (AP Photo)

So the New Orleans Saints came to be on All Saints day and many believe this to be the work of Our Lady of Prompt Succor who has never turned her back on the Crescent City though today, after being escorted to the river and then thrown in by now mayor Latoya The Destroyah et al, waits patiently to return and help restore devotion to The Maid of Orleans, for whom the city is named, Saint Joan d’Arc. This series of events happened in New Orleans and stirred excitement among the citizenry without anyone protesting that a “theocracy was being installed” or any such inanities. Alas, this was the beginning of the end of New Orleans as a Catholic enclave.

Saint Joan D’Arc in St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans

Now why is the naming of The New Orleans Saints an act that was made possible by the Catholic Church’s presence in the daily lives of the citizens of New Orleans? Because Dixon was a devout Catholic and the Holy Ghost worked through him to give the now wretched NFL some semblance of the city’s Catholic heritage. From Dixon’s obit we learn.

Mr. Dixon was invested as a Knight of Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem in 1985, and, in 1989, as a Knight of St. Gregory. Both are papal orders.

The city of New Orleans is the site of many miracles and home of several saints. In 1815 Our Lady of Propmt Succor, upon the request of Colonel Andrew Jackson interceded on behalf of the city and the then nascent United States at the Battle of New Orleans for a shocking and decisive victory over the British.

Blessed Xavier Seelos and Blessed Henri DeLisle made the city their apostolate’s home. The devotion to The Holy Face of Our Lord in the U.S. then the world was made possible at the request of NOLA Archbishop Napoleon Perché.

Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini established schools for the poor Catholics in the city, lived here and one of her schools still stands as does devotion to her. The last American Eucharistic Congress was held in the city which came to a glorious halt for 2 weeks to celebrate and honor the Blessed Sacrament in her basilicas, the Cathedral, City Park Stadium where the largest Mass in Louisiana’s history was held, in her streets and in the hearts and minds of nearly 750,000 Catholics in the city.

On All Saints Day 2022, New Orleans , like every major metropolitan center on this continent, needs you and me, citizen, to become saints and work to restore The Faith to our civic lives. As Dom Prosper Gueranger exhorts us on this day.

Time is no more; it is the human race eternally saved, that is thus presented in vision to the prophet of Patmos. Our life of struggle and suffering on earth is, then, to have an end. Our long lost race is to fill up the angelic ranks thinned by Satan’s revolt; and, uniting in the gratitude of the redeemed of the Lamb, the faithful spirits will sing with us: Thanksgiving, honor, and power, and strength to our God for ever and ever!

Today, however, the Church is too full of joy to think of any but the elect; they alone take part in the glorious close of human history described in the Epistle. Indeed, they alone are reckoned before God; the reprobate are but the waste of a world where sanctity alone responds to the Creator’s advances, to the ventures of his infinite love.

Let our souls be supple to receive the divine stamp, which is to render us comformable to the image of the Only-begotten Son, and mark us out as God’s coin. Whoever is unwilling to receive the divine impress will inevitably be marked with the character of the beast; and when the Angels come to make the final settlement, every coin unfit to bear the divine stamp will fall into the furnace, where the dross will burn eternally.

Let us, then, as the Gradual recommends, live in fear; not that of the slave, who dreads punishment, but that filial fear, which is anxious never to displease him from whom are all good things, and whose kindness deserves all our love in return. Without losing aught of their beatitude, or diminishing their love, the angelic Powers and all the Saints in heaven prostrate with a holy trembling beneath the gaze of God’s awful majesty.

My patron and Confirmation saint is Saint Augustine and he is a minute by minute guide in my life. I would love to hear about your patron, Confirmation or saint that has had an impact in your life, please post them in the comments below!

A Blessed Feast of All Saints to you and yours!