FIRST 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, honor, 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.”
SECOND READING I 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 Matthew 5:1-12a
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”
My sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ,
What is a saint? Far too often we think of saints as those people who are really good and we are not among them. We forget that we are all called to be saints and to live our lives completely for God. Today’s readings remind us how to live in our daily lives in a way which keeps us focused on serving God.
Our first reading is from the Book of Revelation. For many of us, this is a really odd book of the Bible that has all kinds of images and which can be used to prove almost anything. It is in this book that we encounter the famous number of 144,000 who will be saved. If we take that number literally, probably you and I won’t be among them! The point is not the number but that these person tried to be faithful to the Lord. That is our challenge today and it was the challenge of all the saints. Those whom we consider saints are those who did the works of God while they were alive in this world.
The second reading today is from the First Letter of John and makes the point that we are children of God. This is a gift of the Father’s love. Perhaps we don’t always feel very much that we are children of God and in our modern world so much of reality is based on feeling. John wants us to know that we are children of God. From that knowledge we can begin to act and eventually our feelings can come to accept the reality that we are children of God.
Sometimes we have to ask ourselves: do I really believe? And we have to remind ourselves that believing is not feeling. Sometimes we feel our belief and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we feel as if we believe in nothing. Yet feeling is not believing. Feeling is about what we feel, not about what we have decided is the ultimate truth.
The Gospel from Matthew today describes how a believer tries to live: poor in spirit, mourning, meek, seeking righteousness, merciful, clean of heart, peacemakers and accepting persecution. We may find ourselves a long way apart from these values and ways of living, but we can still choose to embrace them because it is the invitation of God Himself. At times it even seems that when a person embraces even one of these beatitudes, then all the others come along. The challenge is to recognize that I can choose this way of living because it is Jesus Himself inviting me. It is not my own human strength. I am a child of God and a brother or sister of the Lord.
All of this helps us realize why we celebrate this Solemnity of All Saints today. These ordinary women and men became great because of their commitment to the Lord Jesus. These women and men sought God as the main focus of their lives. These women and men served others with love. The number of the saints includes Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Jewish people, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and every other brand or type of person, including those who never even explicitly believed. We Catholics venerate in a special way the Catholic saints recognized by our Church even as we also recognize that saints have always been living in our own times and are found among all peoples and beliefs.
We Catholics believe in a “communion of the saints,” which means that all who have died and all who still live are able to touch one another’s lives in some mysterious way. Those who are with God are still able to intercede for our wellbeing and we are able to be in relationship with them. Our faith is not about being alone, but about being with all others through all eternity. Today we give thanks for those who have gone before us and who intercede with God for us. Let us rejoice with them!
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip