Homily for the Solemnity of All Saints
1 November 2009
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
Year for Priests
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Halloween gets bigger all the time. Very few adults got dressed up when I was young. When I was young, Halloween was something I always knew I would grow out of. Now I'm not so sure. I feel myself turning the other way, wanting to share in the enthusiasm of Halloween again. Am I wrong, or is Halloween getting to be a bigger holiday all the time? When I see facebook status(es) saying that Halloween is the greatest night of the year, I admit I get a little defensive, being a priest and all. But overall the incremental enthusiasm for Halloween is probably a good thing. I'm not worried that great numbers of people are turning toward the darkness or the occult. I would preach about it in a second if I were. Everyone expects the Vatican to come out and to condemn Halloween - because doesn't the Church always try to take our 'fun' away? But there is no such thing forthcoming. If anything, I see fewer and fewer witches and zombies and vampires and more and more outrageous costumes of stupifying silliness. In my opinion, Halloween has become for almost everyone not a turn to the dark side but a celebration of love with friends, and a way to build community, as everyone participates in the festival.
There is one thing I would change about Halloween, however. I wish deep down that the celebration of Halloween would be a precursor to the great holy day of All Saints, which falls on a Sunday this year thereby saving me lots of confessions of people missing the Holy Day of obligation. I wish enthusiasm for Halloween equaled enthusiasm for All Saints. I see lots of energy going toward the perfect costumes and perfect parties, none of which I want to take away. I just wish that the party wasn't over so soon, for if there was ever was a party for people celebrating the ability to become someone that have always dreamed of being, it is the liturgy in which we now find ourselves, the solemnity of All Saints. It is in this liturgical party and prayer, that we place ourselves within the great company of the saints who were transformed before the very eyes of men not just for a night, but for eternity. Wearing a costume for a night with friends is one thing, for sure. It is fun. Yet how much more fun should we be having tonight with our friends, the saints, with whom we pray in a very intense way in this liturgy. Our friends, the saints, are the ones who help us not to create and wear a perfect costume for a night, but who help us by their prayers to transform ourselves into what we all wish we could become forever.
There are too many saints for us to remember. The book of revelation says that 144,000 is a good place to start, but that there are countless more! We remember Peter and Paul easily. We all have a favorite patron saint like Mother Teresa or Maximilian Kolbe. There are old saints, and ones canonized by the Church just this month like Damian who worked with the lepers of Hawaii. There are saints we call upon often for their friendship when we are in deep trouble, like St. Anthony or St. Jude. But there are many others waiting for us to discover, more saints than there are costume options for Halloween. We make a special effort tonight to remember our friends whom we tend to forget over time, especially those dead who have been heroic witness of faith, hope and love in our own lives, during this special liturgy in which we renew our friendship with all the saints.
We remember tonight that saints are holy because they preferred nothing to the love of Christ (St. Benedict). To take nothing away from the greatest scientists, artists, and political and military heroes of human history, all of whom we should remember often alongside all those who promote the common good of humanity by unselfishly inspiring and helping their fellow man, the saints are those we remember especially because they made the love of God more present in the world. It is the commitment of the saints to prefer nothing to the love of Christ, and their belief that the human person is redeemed by the love of Christ, that sets them apart from the rest of humanity. As Pope Benedict said in his first encyclical God is Love, even if there were no longer any disease or war in the world, and even if political leaders were able to deliver justice to all people, the world would still need saints, for the vocation of man is not to be comfortable or self-sufficient, but is to love, and man is ordered to and set free by love. A saint is a person who makes the love of God more present and more real to a world that is always tempted to stray from that love.
Just as the love that Jesus Christ brought into the world, a love that grows more intense according to the greatest need of the least deserving, made his life's story the greatest story in human history, so also the lives of the saints are lives that have changed the world more than any other. If we believe that the world will one day be redeemed fully by the love of God, then the saints, who lived only to make that love more present, are the lives by which the world is most deeply changed. We might say it this way. If we wonder why there is still hatred, and war and injustice in the world, and a lack of respect for the dignity of the human person, we can think of a lot of reasons. But the real reason is that there are not enough saints in the world. If we wonder why so many people still despair of ever finding their deep purpose in the world, it is because there are not enough saints in the world. If we accept that the vocation of man is to love, then it is by love and love alone that the world is forever changed and set free. The saints are those who loved God and their neighbor most deeply, and so the saints, both those canonized by the Church and those unable to be canonized, are by this definition the deepest agents of change this world will ever know.
The saints with whom we pray tonight have completed their race. They hand on the baton to us. Like Jesus who has ascended to the Father, yet sends His Holy Spirit to remain fully present to us and to guide us along our life's journey, so also the saints whose souls are with God stand ready to help us as our friends with their prayers. Like us, the saints by their own power were not even able to follow the ten commandments, let alone fulfill perfectly the beatitudes read to us in tonight's Gospel. Yet knowing that Jesus alone is poor in spirit, and sorrowful, and meek, and merciful, and pure of heart, and peaceful, and persecuted for the sake of righteousness, the saints humbly gave Christ the space of their own lives so that his heroic virtue and love might reach new places and new people. Beset by weakness like we are, the saints were still able to accomplish the impossible, becoming holy, because they gave Christ through them the opportunity to complete his mission of redeeming the world by love. In the lives of the saints, no matter how big or small our lives may be, we see a way forward for us. With the saints as our friends, we see with them the way our lives too might change the world, not just for a night, but for eternity. +m
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