All
Saints Day (Year A)
First
Reading: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14
Second Reading: 1
John 3:1-3 Gospel Reading:
Matthew 5:1-12a
“LORD, THIS IS THE PEOPLE THAT LONGS TO SEE YOUR FACE!”
After
a long illness a woman died and arrived at the Gates of Heaven. While
she was waiting for St. Peter to greet her, she peeked through the
Gates. She saw inside a beautiful banquet table. Sitting around it
were her parents and all the other people whom she had loved and who
died before her.
When
St. Peter came by, the woman said to him, “This is such a
wonderful place! How do I get in?” “You will have to spell a
word,” St. Peter told her. “Which word?” the woman
asked. “LOVE,” St. Peter said. The woman correctly spelled
the word “LOVE” and St. Peter welcomed her into heaven.
About
six month later St. Peter came to the woman and asked her to watch
the Gates of Heaven for him that day. Now, while the woman was
guarding the Gates of Heaven, her husband arrived there. “I'm
surprised to see you here,” the woman said, “How have you
been?” “Oh! I have been doing pretty well since you died,”
her husband told her. “I married the beautiful nurse who took
care of you while you were ill. And then I won a lottery. I sold the
little house you and I lived in, and bought a big mansion. And my
wife and I traveled all around the world. We were on vacation and
went water skiing today. I fell, the ski hit my head and here I am.”
Then
he asked her, “How do I get in?” “You will
have to spell a word,” the woman told him. “Which word?”
her husband asked. She replied, “CZECHOSLOVAKIA.”
I
suppose all of us do realize that this is no way to get into heaven
when we die. However, this humorous story does bring up a most
serious question - 'How does a person get
into heaven? Who will be there and who will not?'
Today
is the 1st
November and on this day we solemnly celebrate the great
feast of All Saints.
It is important to emphasize from the beginning what we mean here by
‘saints.' Normally, we apply
the word to people of extraordinary holiness who have been
'canonized' or 'beatified'
by the Church. Among them each one has their favorites: St. Elizabeth
of Hungary, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of Lisieux, St.
Anthony, St. Joseph and so on. But today’s feast uses the word in a
much wider sense. It refers to all those baptized
Christians who have died and are now in heaven with God in
glory. It also certainly includes all non-Christians who
lived a good life sincerely in accordance with the convictions of
their conscience. “Lord, this is the
people that longs to see your face.”
The
Gospel Reading from St. Matthew chosen for today’s feast is
interesting. It gives us what we know as 'the
Beatitudes' from the beginning of the Sermon on the
Mount. It is, in fact, a
Charter for Holiness. When
many people think of holiness they think of keeping 'the
Ten Commandments' and perhaps
some other requirements of the Church like going to Mass on Sundays
or fasting during Lent. What we often tend to forget is that the Ten
Commandments really belong to the Old Testament and are part of the
Jewish law. Of course, they are still valid and Jesus said clearly
that he had not come to abolish the Jewish law but to fulfill it.
We might then say that
the Beatitudes are an example of that fulfilling. They go far beyond
the Ten Commandments in what they expect of a follower of Christ and
yet the sad thing is that one hears of relatively few Christians
saying that they base their lives on the Beatitudes. When we go to
Confession it is the Ten Commandments we normally refer to and not
the Beatitudes. And this is sad because it is clear from their
position in Matthew’s gospel that the Beatitudes have a central
place. The Beatitudes is a compendium,
a summary of Jesus' teachings. They are a kind of mission
statement saying what kind of person the good Christian will be.
The
Gospel says that particularly blessed are: Those who are poor in
spirit; those who are gentle; those who mourn;
those who hunger and thirst for what is right; those who are
merciful; those who are pure in heart; those who make
peace; and those who are persecuted in the cause of right.
This is the kind of
Christian we are all called to be. It is these qualities which made
the saints and which will make saints of us too. They go far beyond
what is required by the Ten Commandments. If taken literally, the
commandments can be kept and not with great difficulty. Many of them
are expressed in the negative, 'You
shall NOT…'
so we can observe them by doing nothing at all! 'I
have not
killed anyone… I have not committed adultery… I have not stolen…'
Does that make me a saint?
Being a Christian is a
lot more than not doing things which are wrong. The Beatitudes are
expressed in positive terms. They also express not just
actions but attitudes. In a way, they can never be fully observed. No
matter how well I try to observe them, I can always go further. They
leave no room for smugness, the kind of smugness the Pharisees had in
keeping the Law. The Beatitudes are a true and reliable recipe for
sainthood. “Lord, this is the people that
longs to see your face.”
Again,
saints are the
children of God.
“Think of the love that the
Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children,”
the Second Reading from the First Letter of St. John reminds us
today. Saints are not self-made people. They are people who have
responded generously to the love of God showered on them. And the
completion of that love is to be invited to share life with God
forever in the life to come.
“What
we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed,”
the Reading also says. We do not know and have no way of knowing what
that future existence will be like and it does not help very much to
speculate. It is better to go along with St. Paul who says that life
face to face with God is something totally beyond our comprehension.
Let us rather concentrate on the life we are leading now and let it
be a good preparation for that future time. “Lord,
this is the people that longs to see your face.”
Indeed,
the First Reading from the book of Revelation presents an apocalyptic
vision of those who have died in Christ. They are numbered at
'144,000' –
a number taken literally by some Christian sects. However, the number
is clearly symbolical. It consists of the sacred number 12, squared
and multiplied by another complete number, 1,000. It simply
represents the total of all those who have died faithful to Christ
their Lord. They represent 'every
nation, tribe and language' for access to Christ is
open to all. They are dressed in white robes with palms in
their hands. They are the robes of goodness and integrity. “They
are the people who have been through the great trial”. That
is they are those who have been through persecution.
And paradoxically, “they have washed their
robes white again in the blood of the Lamb”. It is the
blood of Jesus Christ which brings salvation but only to those
who have united with him in sharing its effects. Many of them, of
course, are martyrs and they have mingled their own blood with that
of Jesus. It is a picture of total victory and the end of all the
pains and sorrows they endured in this life. “Lord,
this is the people that longs to see your face.”
Today’s
feast is first of all an occasion for great rejoicing and
thanksgiving. It is altogether reasonable to think that many of our
family, relatives and friends who have gone before us are being
celebrated today. We look forward to the day when we, too, can be
with them experiencing the same total joy, happiness and peace.
Today is also a day for
us to pray to them – both the canonized and the
not-canonized – and ask them to pray on our behalf that we may
live our lives in faithfulness so that we too may experience the same
reward. “LORD,
THIS IS THE PEOPLE THAT LONGS TO SEE YOUR FACE!”
And this is the Good News of today.
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