Feast of All Saints, Nov. 1, 2006

Scriptures: Rev.7:2-4,9-14. Psalm 24:1-6. I John 3:1-3. Matthew 5:1-12.

This is one of my favorite feast days in the liturgical year. It comes a day before my mother's birthday (Nov.2, 1903-Feb.24, 1986) and now I can remember her among the saints. She used to jokingly tell us, "Please, pray for me on my birthday, I am a poor soul." Yes, it was Vatican II that gave me even greater joy about this feastday, for in the Constitution on the Church called "A Light to the Nations" (Lumen Gentium) it has an entire chapter on the universal call to holiness. That means even you and I are called to this holiness as belonging to the pilgrim people of God. It is this call or vocation that God has for each of us that is our path to sanctity and today we celebrate all those who have gone before us with the sign of faith and are now living in the presence of God.

Looking first at the Book of Revelation we discover that this is a universal call of all humans to be with God. Of course, the chosen people are represented by the 144,000 which I take as the People of God, the Israelites. The writer undoubtedly is showing the great number of the twelve times magnified into the 144, 000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Then, in addition to the People of God, the Israelites, the visionary tells us, "then I saw a huge crowd which no none could count from every nation, race, people, and tongue who stood before the Lamb (Jesus as the Passover Lamb and Servant Messiah) dressed in white robes with palms in their hands." These are our ancestors in the faith from Abraham on down to our own recent saints like Mother Theresa and John XXIII. Our grandparents and deceased loved parents are among them who are before God and are at peace.

The First Epistle of John is a powerful letter of faith and love. These two themes inundate the sacred inspired pages and bring us to realize that the best way of identifying God is with love. "God is love." We are called the children of God since we are made in God's image and likeness, but our development still is going to be better, for John continues, "what we shall later be has not come to light." That means that even a more loving intimacy awaits us in the arms of our Creator and Redeemer. That love will be greater than what our parents have shown us. Not a bad scenario, eh?

The Gospel gives us the Beatitudes that Jesus gave to those listening to him. Both Matthew and Luke have given us this blueprint for keeping the spirit of the commandments and precepts of God. They are for us the map on our pilgrim way toward the realm of God--a road map for a holy, wholesome, joyous, and generous life lived out for others. Just think of any saint from the Tanakh (Old Testament) or the New Testament or any holy person and you will find the beatitudes are personified.

In Father Richard McBrien's book, "Lives of the Saints", I found this wonderful summary for the feast taken from Vatican II: "In the lives of those companions of ours who are more perfectly transformed into the image of Christ (see II Cor.3:18) God shows, vividly, to humanity his presence and his face. He speaks to us in them an offers us a sign of his Kingdom, to which we are powerfully attracted, so great a cloud of witnesses are we given (see Hebrews 12:1) and such an affirmation of the truth of the Gospel....Our communion with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom as from its fountain and head flow all grace and life of the people of God itself." (Lumen Gentium, #50).