We Are All Called To Be Saints
Introduction
On this celebration of All Saints, we ask ourselves: What is our idea of saints? Are they to us idealistic dreamers out of touch with the world and with people, passive and joyless like their plaster statues? Today’s liturgy tells us a different story. They are ordinary people like us, of the same flesh and blood as we. But they had the courage to be different, to do the ordinary things of life in the extraordinary way of Christ from whom they drew their courage. They put us to shame with their quiet but strong gentleness, their integrity, their commitment to God and to people in justice and truth and peace. Let us ask the Lord here with us for the strength to follow him the way they did.
First Reading Introduction: Victors with Christ
St. John gives us a vision of hope in the ultimate future: those who live the gospel of will be victorious with him; their number will be immense.
1 Reading: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14
I, John, saw another angel come up from the East, holding the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the children of Israel. After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.” All the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They prostrated themselves before the throne, worshiped God, and exclaimed: “Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honour, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, “Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?” I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.”
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 24:1-2,3-4,5-6
R. (cf. 6) Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
The LORD’s are the earth and its fullness;
the world and those who dwell in it.
For he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers. R.
Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD?
or who may stand in his holy place?
One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean,
who desires not what is vain. R.
He shall receive a blessing from the LORD,
a reward from God his savior.
Such is the race that seeks him,
that seeks the face of the God of Jacob. R.
Second Reading Introduction: Children of God
The key to all holiness is love: the certainty that God loves us—he loved us first—and that we are his sons and daughters. This assurance makes us capable of all hope and love.
2 Reading: 1 John 3:1-3
Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.
Gospel: The Beatitudes: God’s Values
The values of the gospel differ sharply from those of the world, yet they are to be lived in the world to make it God’s world. The beatitudes are the inspiration of a Christian’s life.
Gospel the Beatitudes: Matthew 5:1-12a
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain. He sat down and his disciples gathered around him. Then he spoke and began to teach them: “Blessed are those who have the spirit of the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the gentle, they shall possess the land. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall find mercy. “Blessed are those with a pure heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are those who work for peace, they shall be called children of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the cause of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you, when people insult you and persecute you and speak all kinds of evil against you because you are my followers. Be glad and joyful, for a great reward is kept for you in God. This is how this people persecuted the prophets who lived before you.”
Commentary
Children are normally desired and loved; but in adoptions there is a special kind of tenderness. There is also a recurrent thought of what might have happened to the child had he or she not been adopted. There is a feeling of curiosity to know what might have led the mother to give up the child… it all translates into a different intensity of love. Adopted children are the children from the heart; in other words, they are the children of a will to love; therefore, when on the Feast of All Saints we are reminded that we all were adopted by God as his beloved children, we are told of an intense, powerful, special, and passionate love of God for each one of us.
The Feast of All Saints speaks of all of us, those who were the children of slavery and death and have gone to be the children of God and of life. It is the feast of the innumerable multitude of the chosen ones who now enjoy the presence of God. Holy ones are those who have been made holy, blessed, and welcomed with love by God, as well as those who have responded to this love by witnessing to who they are: the adopted children of God, members of his church. For some of those described by John in Revelation, such witness meant sufferings and even death; but they knew what true life is all about and their answer of love to the intense and tender love of God was so strong, they didn’t mind giving all they had received from that love.
Saints are also the blessed ones Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount. They are those who have such a clear identity that they don’t think wealth is everything; nor do they think that their sufferings are in vain or will last forever; they are those who are willing to fight for justice and for the good of all. In other words, those who feel, in their entirety, that they are the children of God and, therefore, brothers and sisters to all. They were not necessarily perfect; that is, in all likelihood, they were not perfect. As human beings, they certainly must have had weaknesses and bad moments; but they are truly saints, blessed because their lives were directed toward God and because they were certain of who they were before God.
Blessing
The saints were people like us,
weak, with faults like the ones we have;
only, they did not take these failings for granted.
They led the same lives as we do,
only in a more courageous way.
We are called to the same holiness
to which God called them.
May you respond to God’s call
with the strength and blessing
of the almighty and loving God:
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. R/ Amen.
Let us go with the saints and with one another
the way to God. R/ Thanks be to God.