All Saints (OF)

As the leaves begin to change color and die off, as the birds begin to fly south, as the temperatures begin to drop, holy Mother Church begins to turn our mind towards our own end. These last few weeks of the liturgical year remind us that this life indeed has an end; in fact, this whole world has an end. Nothing is truly permanent in this life, but all is fleeting and empty of ultimate value in the face of the finish line. As much as our modern society tries to cheat it, death still comes for every one of us.

For the Christian, however, death does not indicate the final point of personal existence nor does it signify the futility of our labors, our joys, our sorrows, our lives. Death is our reminder that we shall each go before the Judge of heaven and earth when we have passed from this mortal coil and receive the eternal recompense for our earthly conduct. One of the visions of Saint John which he recorded in his Book of Revelation is Jesus standing as the Just Judge over all on the last day, the dies irae as the traditional funeral sequence reminds us. But before that day of wrath comes, Saint John has another vision, which we hear in today’s readings: the 144 thousand and the great multitude before the throne and the Lamb.

It is this group which has already assembled in part whom we celebrate today, for the feast of All Saints is the celebration of all the souls who have begun to receive the eternal reward of union with God in Heaven. Blessed John Henry Newman tells us that “This great multitude, which no man could number, is gathered into this one day's commemoration, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, the noble army of Martyrs, the Children of the Holy Church Universal, who have rested from their labours.” Every soul in heaven, from the Blessed Virgin Mary all the way to the soul who squeaked out enough contrition for their sins, every soul that dwells in that eternal light is celebrated this day. Why is it that we celebrate these souls today? We celebrate them for the victory they have achieved, for the aid they provide, and for the reminder they offer.

We first celebrate them for their victory. Each of these souls has gained heaven first by the infinite grace of God, given to them through the sacraments and through their daily struggles. Many of them have gained this prize through the shedding of blood; others through the great evangelical labors and counsels such as poverty, chastity, and obedience; others through the quiet small faithfulness of ordinary life. But all of them, whether martyrs, confessors, virgins, or otherwise, have worked for their eternal rest, but they are restless when it comes to we who remain, who still have our own journey.

The saints are not so arrogant that, once they leave this world, they abandon us and focus solely on God. On the contrary, their love of God increases exponentially each day so that they love us even more than we love one another. If they are truly united to God, who desires our individual salvation, why would they not desire it for us as well? Thus do the saints seek to intercede for us before the heavenly altar, passing along our petitions and prayers to the wondrous Giver of every good and perfect gift which we need and should desire. Just as family sticks together and helps one another, so too does our family in Heaven, our brothers and sisters united together in Christ, aid us in all that we need.

But why do we need aid? Why do we call it victory? We need aid, and we hail it as victory because our earthly life is a contest between sin and salvation. Heaven is not free nor is it cheap; God has indeed opened the gates thanks to the merits of Christ our Redeemer, but He can still close those gates upon us. The saints stand as a reminder first that this victory is possible; that we can indeed gain Heaven by the grace of God and the merits of our labors. Yet they also remind us that, no matter what we are called to do in this life, we must struggle and we must fight in order to gain that prize of faith. It is not easy, but salvation is not so impossible that even we who live in the world can achieve it.

There are so many varieties of saints to discover, to learn from, and to emulate in our own way. The martyrs: the first witnesses of Christian holiness, who strove valiantly against the enemies of our faith. The confessors: those who went before the world and proclaimed the Gospel by their words and their actions so as to draw others to Christ. The virgins: the brides of Christ who unite themselves to their heavenly Spouse in hope of a more fruitful maternity than we could imagine. The married: seeking holiness through the union of man and woman, a holiness which is meant to bear fruit. The old: those who have struggled and fought for many years to achieve victory. The young: those whom God calls to Himself to receive that victory in Himself.

The Church has surrounded herself with the saints from the very beginning. The Roman Canon, the oldest of the eucharistic prayers in our missal, is lined with the great saints of Rome and the Empire, the apostles, martyrs, and virgin martyrs who overcame strife and discord in order to be crowned with Christ in victory. But the list of saints continues to grow each day, both those publicly proclaimed to be saints by the Church and the hidden list, the list known only to God until the last day, when all shall be revealed and all shall be rewarded as is right and just.

Let us rejoice that God has already blessed the saints with the reward of Himself. Let us pray to all the saints that they may intercede for us before the throne of the Lamb by whose blood we are redeemed. But let us also begin to live so as to become saints ourselves. God demands no less than that. Let us live the Beatitudes of our Gospel, so as to emulate our Lord, the model and source of all holiness. Let us not despair that it is hard, but let us strive to achieve that reward for ourselves so that we may be worthy of the prize of eternal life.

All Saints (OF)

When we were children, we all had that person we looked up to.  Whether it was our parents or a sibling, an athlete or some fictional character; each of us had someone whom we saw as a role model or as someone we’d like to be when we grow up.  Perhaps we still have that person in mind today though we have gained a few more years to our life.  Humanity is always seeking an inspiration to be better and to do better, to improve our lives from the drab and flab or the snoring and the boring.

Yet is this true within the Church?  It seems sometimes in our own day that some Christians do not desire to follow Christ more completely or seek to transform their lives according to what Jesus teaches us, but rather, they seek to transform the Church to follow after their own example or lack of example.  “Why can’t the Church change this?”, or, “Why is the Church so harsh about that?”, these lackadaisical Christians will ask.  While it is easy to seek a role model among the athletes and abnormal in our society, it seems to be more difficult to seek Christ as a role model in our own time.

Today’s feast shows us that this is not meant to be the case.  We celebrate the feast of All the Saints, of all the holy people who are now in Heaven enjoying eternal union with God.  If there is any day which condemns the lazy Christian’s complaint about the Church and her teachings, it is this day.  For we see in the lives of all the saints, known and unknown to us, how simple it is to hear the word of God and obey it.  We see in the saints the heavenly role model for our Christian lives.

The saints demonstrate to us the proper attitude of the Christian to the teachings of Christ and His Church: a spirit of belief and receptivity.  It is not we who are meant to change the Church in our own image, but rather Christ working through His Church in proclaiming to us how humanity is meant to be recreated in His image.  The saints bear witness in being the children of God, as Saint John says we are meant to be in his letter from our readings today.  If we are the children of God, then we will strive to obey our Father in all that He reveals to us through His only-begotten Son.

This filial obedience must first come through belief.  The saints show us that we must believe every word coming from the mouth of Christ as coming from God Himself.  Each one of them received the grace necessary to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He was born of the Virgin Mary, lived, suffered and died for our sins, rose again on the third day, ascended, and reigns now from His holy throne in Heaven.  If a Christian does not actually believe in this which we profess in the Creed every Sunday and holy day, then they do not have the Christian faith, but follow a false teacher or the devil in his lies.

This belief must then be put into practice in the life of the Christian.  Saint James reminds us that faith without works is dead.  We are called not only to believe in Jesus, but to live our lives based on all of His works and teachings.  Our Gospel shows us the summation of this in the Beatitudes, the highest of all teachings which Jesus gave us in His earthly life. We are shown in these words not merely the condemnation of what is sinful, but the blessings which emerge for doing that which is healthful.  Each phrase demonstrates to us why doing these things is good, with the final phrase revealing to us that all of this will be good in that it leads us towards the reward of Heaven.

The lives of all the saints bear witness to this promise.  Look through the catalog of saints throughout the 2000 years in which the Church has existed.  You will see the martyrs of the Church, showing to the pagans or even to bad Christians the primacy and reality of Christ over the false gods and false doctrines.  You will see the great doctors teaching the truth and condemning errors from outside and inside the Church.  You will see the holy monks and nuns who renounce all that this world offers in order to seek after Christ and to live here and now in preparation for Heaven.  You will see popes, bishops, and priests directing souls to Christ through their preaching and their sacerdotal ministry.  You will see married couples bearing the fruits of holiness through their marriage and through their children.  You will see great and small, famous and nearly-forgotten, men, women, and children, all filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit, longing to see the face of God.

The saints are our role models for living the Christian life.  They are not chosen by God to be saints apart from us.  Every single one of us is called to be a saint!  Sometimes, it seems that we think only some are meant to be saints while the rest of us are just supposed to be “normal” Christians.  This is far from the truth; in fact, Jesus says elsewhere in the same Gospel to all of His disciples, and to all of us in turn, that we are to be perfect (Matthew 5:48).  Jesus calls us to be saints!

If we are called to be saints, if we are called to be perfect, how can this be done?  This process of sainthood starts not from within ourselves, but from outside of ourselves.  With God all things are possible, and with the grace of God we can become saints.  He has already given us the grace to become members of His Church, to partake of the sacrament of baptism so as to be washed clean of the original sin which first stained us.  We should not be shy in beseeching His mercy to grant us every grace we need to be the saints He desires us to be and towards which He calls us.  Our first and last recourse should always be in prayer.

We should also seek the aid of the saints.  The saints are far more than role models for the Christian; they are our friends in Heaven.  They desire all of us to join them in the courts of Heaven and seek to win from God all that we need in order to be with them.  We should certainly find the saints that resonate with us, either in their life or in their example.  There are plenty of saints to choose from, and almost every walk of life is covered, so we have no excuse for not finding a saint to be our heavenly helper.

Along with prayer to God and to the saints, we must also be receptive to receiving the sacraments frequently and in a proper state.  Jesus Christ has given the sacraments to us through His Church as the primary means of distributing grace.  We must take full advantage of them, most especially the Eucharist and the confessional.  If we have sinned, we must not delay in receiving the mercy of God through the sacrament of reconciliation.  To go for a long period of time without going to confession would be like going a long time without showering or bathing.  In fact, to help with this, I plan on adding more time for confession on the weekends and even during the week.  There should be little excuse on my part for you not to receive the mercy of God.

Finally, we must echo the saints in living out the Christian faith in every action of our lives.  Holiness is not meant for merely one or two great moments; it is meant to be diffused throughout every moment of our life.  Each decision carries with it the choice of increasing in holiness or decreasing.  Saint John reminds us that if we hope to know what will be revealed to us in Heaven, then we must keep ourselves pure from sin, just as Christ is pure.

Let us pray to that great cloud of witnesses who cheers us on in Heaven that we may run so as to win (cf. Heb. 12:1; 1 Cor 9:24).  Let us be inspired by the great role models of the saints to live the Christian faith to the fullest.  Let us pray to the Virgin Mary, the Queen of all the saints, that she may aid us by her prayers and her example to live as the humble servants of the Lord.  Let us learn from the saints the simple road of holiness taught to them and to us by Christ our divine Master.  May we live such lives of holiness that we may join the great multitude in praising and glorifying Christ our Lamb and our King in the eternal joys of heaven.