We are all called to be saints!

Homily for All Saints 2015

Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14, 1 John 3:1-3, Matthew 5:1-12A

Introduction

I remember a story my former bishop once told on All Saints' Day.  He was a young priest and had just completed graduate studies at a prominent university in New York and was returning home to Uganda.  After congratulating him on his success, an elderly nun told him: “Father, although you now have acquired a prestigious academic title, there is still one more title that you need to get.”

“Which one,” the young priest asked?  “Monsignor?”

“No,” the nun replied.

“Bishop, Archbishop?”

“No.”

“Well, it must be Pope,” the anxious young priest said.

“No, Father” said the nun.  “The title that you still need to add behind your name is “Saint, Saint Denis.”

How right sister was!  We Christians, indeed all human beings are called to become saints.  That is what we celebrate today, when were remember all the saints, so many unnamed men and women, perhaps even people we’ve known.

And so, in my homily today, I would like to reflect briefly on sainthood by answering three questions: (1) Who are saints?  (2) How do we become saints? (3) When do we become saints?

Who is a saint?

And so, who is a saint?  One of the Catholic elementary schools in the area celebrates "All Saints Day" by having the students pick and dress up like a saint.  Parents and parishioners come to the school throughout the day to see the kids dressed up as saints and to learn about the saints.  But a few years ago some kids misunderstood the instructions of the teacher; and so they showed up dressed as Drew Brees, Mark Ingram and other New Orleans Saints players.

But the saints we are talking about today are different.  Our first reading from Revelation described them as: “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.”  We heard that: “They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.”  The saints are companions of God; they are friends of God; they live with God, praising him day and night.  They are not like the spirits of Halloween who have lost their way; the spirits of the saints have made it to heaven, and are enjoying the life and light of God.

How do we become saints?

How then do we become saints?  How do we become friends of God?  How do ensure our admission into heaven?

Like our own New Orleans Saints, we have to sign up and we have to work hard.  We sign up for sainthood through the sacrament of baptism and we work hard by living our lives according to God’s laws.

Like the football team has to practice hard for several hours a day, our journey to heaven is equally demanding.  Jesus, the coach wants us to be perfect just as his heavenly father is perfect, if we are to get a place on the heavenly team.  Thank God, in his teaching, Jesus gives us tips on how to train and be ready.

In the Old Testament God gave us the Ten Commandments, to guide our relationship with God and that with our fellow human beings.  In fact, when the Rich young man asks Jesus how he can attain eternal life with God, Jesus first tells him to observe the Ten Commandments.  But for Jesus these Ten Commandments are not enough.

In the New Testament Jesus gives us another list, the Beatitudes that we have just heard in the gospel.  While the Ten Commandments are phrased in the negative, telling us the bad things to avoid, the Beatitudes of Jesus give us positive commandments, telling us what good we must do, if we want to earn a place on the heavenly starting team.

·        Jesus will count us among the Blessed in heaven because while on earth we were poor in spirit, because we mourned, because we were the meek.

·        He will count us among the Blessed in heaven because we hungered and thirsted for righteousness, because we were merciful, because we were clean of heart; that is why shall see God in heaven.

·        Jesus will count us among the children of God in heaven because we were peacemakers, because we were persecuted for the sake of righteousness, and because we were insulted and had every kind of evil uttered falsely against us because of his name.

And so, just like it takes hard work and practice for a young man to eventually wear the Black and Gold jersey, so it takes hard work and practice, always with God’s help, to earn one of those white jerseys the saints in heaven wear.  The book of Revelation told us that the saints 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."  They have followed the Lord’s way faithfully until the end.

When do we become saints?

We have seen who the saints are – friends and companions of God.  We have seen how to become saints – by observing the commands that God has given us to follow.  The final question then is: when do we become saints?

Up to this point we might get the idea that becoming saints is something waiting to happen out there in the future.  But actually we are saints even now, as soon as we take the first step of the journey at our baptism. 

At the beginning of virtually all his letters, Saint Paul addresses the Christians as the “Holy Ones” or “Saints” (2 Cor 1:1; Eph 1:1; Col 1:1; 1:19; Acts 16; Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:2).  He does this to acknowledge the work that God is already doing in them.  Even Saint John in today's second reading tells us: "Beloved, we are God’s children now;"  In other words as Christians we are already friends of God. John then goes on to say: "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."  We begin the journey to sainthood here and we shall complete it in heaven.

Yes, we are also sinners.  But what is a saint, if not a reformed sinner or a sinner on the journey to heaven? When we sing about the saints marching on to victory, we are only singing about our daily efforts to finish the journey of sharing life with God, only partially now but fully in heaven.

Conclusion

Our journey to sainthood might be helped, if saints were part of our lives, not just on All Saints Day, but throughout the year.  Instead of turning to celebrities as our role models, why not turn to the saints?  Let me suggest two ways:

First, we could return to the practice of naming our children after saints, much like we dress them up in the jersey of their favorite Saints' player.   What better way to usher a child into life, than by giving them a personal saint, someone they can imitate, but also someone who prays for them to become saints.

Second, in the Catholic calendar, every day of the year is assigned one or more saints.  For example, my patron saint Deogratias is assigned March 22.  Perhaps as we look for gifts for our children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, besides the Xbox, we should consider giving them a Book of Saints, as we pick up one for ourselves.  Then each day, we can read up about one man or woman, who has travelled the journey before us.  From this book or from a phone app, we might just pick up one or two tips on how to make it all the way to heaven.