Feast of All Saints
On this beautiful feast of
All Saints our minds think of all those who have died, who have gone before us
and are living with the Lord in eternity.
It’s a reminder to all us that everyone of us here today is called to be
a saint. Whether or not after you and I
have died we go through a canonization process and some miracle is attributed
to you or to me and we get that official St. Patrick Grile, well that may not
happen. Hopefully not in my lifetime
anyway! But the point is, whether or not
you are a canonized saint. Those are the people who have led exemplary lives, a
lot of us automatically think, well gee whiz I can’t be like that person. And I know you are like me, I remember when I
was especially in grade school, and we would read these lives of some of the
saints. And when I got into the seminary
and they told us one of the stories about St. Gerard, who was a contemporary of
St. Alphonsus. Gerard was a brother, he
did not become a priest, but he was a brother in the congregation. And the story goes that Gerard was a very
simple person, a very holy person. And
supposedly one time his superior told him, “Oh go stick your head in the
oven.” And Gerard literally did go stick
his head in the oven. And I thought to
myself, “Stupid. If that’s what it means
to be a saint I’m outta here.”
So when we here stories
about some of these people who seem to be very eccentric, we say, “I don’t want
anything to do with that.” Well you
don’t have to have anything to do with that.
To be a saint literally is to live what Jesus gives us in the gospel to
live the beatitudes. To be a saint
merely means to be in a right relationship with God. And if we are in a right relationship with
God, then hopefully we are in a right relationship with the community, with the
Church, with one another.
That first reading from the
Book of Revelation was a great reading because at that time the people had been
undergoing persecution by the Roman authorities in the early church. And Revelations was written to give people
hope and encouragement to say, “Yes you are being persecuted. This is a time of trial and hardship but
there is something far, far better waiting for you. There is eternity. There is the gift of heaven. Don’t lose hope because of immediate pain and
sufferings and sorrow.” It gave them
great hope that they would get through it.
John in the second reading
says we are all God’s children. That’s
who we are. We are a very wonderful,
good people. God loves each and every
one of us. And you and I are great and
wonderful, not because of the things that you or I do, because of the fact that
God loves us. That’s why we are beloved. And when you finally accept that and realize
that then you and I in turn want to pass that love onto others. And that’s why Jesus gives us the
beatitudes. How we pass on the
love. That’s all the beatitudes. It’s Blessed are the poor in spirit, the
reign of God is theirs.
The beatitudes again are
holding out hope to people. The fullness
of the blessing of the beatitudes will only be received when the kingdom of God
comes in its fullness. Part of our faith
tells us, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” We know and we believe that there will be a final
coming of Jesus. In the fullness of that
kingdom that’s where the beatitudes have their completion.
So they are meant to be
images, ideals, signs of hope, of glory for you and for me. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the reign of
God is theirs. Being poor in spirit has
nothing to say about how much we have.
There are many people who do not have a lot of the things, can be very
happy, or they can be very much struggling.
So it isn’t so much how we look at possessions, or the possessions
themselves but how we look at them. Can
I have them or can I do without them? It
means that I realize that everything I have depends on God. I didn’t do anything to make the sun shine
today. It’s God’s gift to you and to
me.
Think of all of our loved
ones. Look at all these pictures on all
of our different ladders, write the names in the book of dead. All these people who have been part of yours
and my live. They are gifts to us by
God. And when a gift is given you and I
receive it and then in death we let go of it and give them back to God. Think of the people in our lives are in a
sense “loaned” to us for how short of long a time it might be. And then in death we give them back to our
God. So the reign of God is theirs. The poor in spirit realize their need for
God.
Blessed too are the
sorrowing, they shall be consoled.
Everyone of us has had to deal with grief. Maybe the death of your parents, your spouse,
one of your own children, sibling, grandma, grandpa, good friend, fellow
worker, classmate. Whatever it might
be. Whoever the person is that
died. And everybody here, death has
touched us somehow. We know what
grieving is. To deny it would really be
to deny part of our humanity. So we much
mourn. We must go through that process
of grieving. That’s why we have
beautiful rituals in our Catholic faith tradition. We don’t deny grief. We don’t deny the dying. It’s very real.
I can remember as a child,
part of my Irish heritage, my mom, we were always going to funerals. And so many times, especially as a child, and
we lived right across the street from church in Grand Rapids. Those days of course Mass was in Latin, you
didn’t understand a thing that was going on, and it was very mournful, very-almost
depressing in a sense. It’s wasn’t
uplifting. But we would sit there. My mom would have me in the back pew in the
church. My other siblings were already
in school so I was probably even only 4, or, 5 or 6-years-old at the time and I
was going to funerals probably once a week, over to St. Alphonsus Church. And I’d say to mom, “Mom, why are we
here?” And she would say, “Pray your
rosary Pat.” I’d say, “Mom do you know
the person that died?” “Pray your rosary
Pat.” I’d say, “Mom do you know these
people that are here?” “Pray your rosary
Pat.” But she was teaching me
something. She was teaching me even then
as a little child how good it is to be there in moments of dying to pray for
the living and with the living, and to pray for the dead. I didn’t understand it then but it was going
in and has been with me all my life.
Now those of you who are
Irish also know that the Irish have that saying, “If you don’t go to their
funeral, they ain’t going to come to yours.”
So she taught me a lot about my Irish heritage in the same way.
So there’s another tip off
on this feast of All Saints. I want us
just to take out a simple moment right now.
Think of all the people who have mentored you, who have been an example for
you living the Christian way of life.
People who passed on the faith to you.
People who were examples of honesty, integrity, forgiveness, charity,
understanding, love. Maybe it is one of
your parents. Whoever it might be. It might have been a teacher. But just for a moment now, in the quiet of
your heart image who those people are who have walked with you and have gone
before us. Think of who those people are
right now and again mentally put them on the altar right now.
These are the people that
God loaned to us. They are with us in
this Eucharist right now because they are celebrating eternity.
Another beatitude that I
think is important in our lives, the third one:
Blessed are the lowly, they shall inherit the land. Sometimes it is translated as Blessed are the
meek. Well meekness, lowliness,
humbleness. They all come from the root
word humus, which means of the earth. So
a lowly, a meek, or a humble person knows that the ground on which we walk is
not mine but again is entrusted to me from God and by God. Humble people, meek, gentle people do not
make demands on other people. We can be
our authentic selves. Gentleness has
nothing to do with the controlling of the emotions. We don’t suppress them.
You know wouldn’t there be
something wrong with a person who could stay calm in the presence of
cruelty? When you see something cruel
and violent being done, either to someone that you love and care about, or even
to someone on the other side of the whole world, don’t emotions spring up
inside of you? You wouldn’t be human if
you didn’t experience that to do that. So
a gentle person does not suppress their emotions. A gentle person doesn’t grovel when they walk
on this earth knowing that it is entrusted to us by our God. And because God is our loving Father we know
that everything on this earth has been give to us. A very simple expression this morning, all
the food that you see before us, around the altar is an expression of our
caring about other people who walk the earth with us. They shall inherit the land. What a beautiful beatitude.
One of my other favorite
beatitudes is: Blessed are the
single-hearted for they shall see God.
You know as a child we are trained to see, aren’t we? What is it that we look at when we look at
somebody else. What do we see in
somebody else that may be different from you or me? Size, color, hair, age, whatever it might
be. We are taught even as a child what
we see in others around us. And if
somehow we see only the things we don’t like then that’s what we react to isn’t
it? But if somehow we are trained to see
the good in other people, oh what a difference.
And when we look to see the good in other people what are we looking
for? We’re looking to see God. Because you and I are the image of God for
one another.
If you want to try this,
turn to someone, you don’t have to do it now if you don’t want, but I’ve seen
in happen. When you look eyeball to
eyeball with somebody else, when you look at that person and you look deeply
into their eyes, what do you see? You
see your own reflection don’t you in their eyeball looking back at you? That’s a tip-off that you and I are the image
of God for one another.
So let’s see, not only with
our eyes but with our heart the good in every person because you and I are the
image of God for one another. Blessed
are the single-hearted for they shall see God.
Maybe go back home today,
pull out your Bible, St. Matthew’s gospel, Chapter 5. Go through those beatitudes again as a
family, or as a couple, whoever you’re with.
Reflect on them, meditate upon them.
Maybe today too in a very simple way ask yourself how you and I can be a
blessing, a beatitude for somebody else.