Homily
Solemnity of All Saints
1 November 2011
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
I've been able to do some amazing things in my life. 4 World Youth Days with the Popes, including in Paris where I got to meet John Paul II in person, and celebrated Mass with over 2 million people. I've concelebrated with Pope Benedict on the field at Yankee Stadium. The day I was ordained a priest was incredible. I have been to South Africa to the World Cup. I've celebrated Mass near the tomb of St. Peter in Rome. I've climbed 14ers in Colorado with friends. I was in Lawrence for the 2008 national championship. And my latest thrill - I was at Arrowhead last night for the miracle victory over the Chargers. That place was wild. Absolutely nuts, like Mass street in 2008 - only with costumes. It was an amazing thrill and so much fun to be there. It was like I had died and gone to heaven!
However, I would have to say that as grateful as I am for these moments, I am not living my life checking off a bucket list. This is no way for a Christian to live. Although there are thousands of more things I would like to do and people I would like to meet and places I would like to go on this earth, I don't really have a bucket list. There is really only one thrill that I have set my heart on, and that thrill is this. When the saints go marching in, oh when the saints go marching in, oh how I'd like to be in that number, when the saints go marching in.
I'm not talking about Drew Brees touchdowns, of course. Not those saints. And I don't mean to bring to mind the Mardi Gras debauchery that this jazzy tune about the saints sometimes arouses. No, I am talking about the real thing. The only remaining thrill that I need to experience, the only one I desperately want to experience, is to be in that number, when the saints go marching in. The only thing I want to feel is what it's like to die and go to heaven.
The promise of heaven, my friends, has to excite us, because what has been promised to us in heaven is so beautiful that we will not be able to look away from its beauty. What has been promised is without compare in this world, for even the most beautiful and perfect moments of our lives pass away, but in heaven they will not. There is something wrong with us if we cannot get excited about this promise, if we impoverish heaven to nothing more than bonus time to an existence we already know. Heaven is not overtime. Heaven is no longer measured, so the perfect moments do not pass away. No, heaven is promised to be something quite different. For eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned upon man, what God has in store for those who love him.
The saints who we celebrate today on our solemnity teach us how to love heaven, and in so doing, they are able to bring heaven to earth, and to live today as we will live forever. The saints teach us that being with God forever in heaven will hold no value in our lives if we do not enjoy being with God now. Our bucket list will always be more important to us than seeking the kingdom of heaven, if being with God now does not excite us. The saints teach us how to love God in our real earthly circumstances with all our heart and mind and strength, and in contemplating heaven they learned how to live outside the measurements of time and space. Saints in a spiritual way always grow younger by contemplating heaven, because in heaven you don't get older. In desiring heaven, saints learned how to turn the clock off that makes perfect moments of our lives fade and pass away, and instead found the key to making every moment perfect by being fulling present to that moment.
This is why we are called to love heaven. Not because it will afford us more time to complete our bucket lists, but because heaven is the constant self-forgetfulness that makes ecstatic moments possible. The perfect moments of our lives are those moments when we lose our sense of self in the midst of something bigger than ourselves. Sin is nothing more than trying to make ourselves more important than the reality present to us, it is trying to assert self-importance when self-forgetfulness is the path to real freedom. Death is the just punishment for sin, for it puts an end to the sinner's ability to grow older and older and older by making life smaller and smaller and smaller through our own measurements.
Again, what makes the perfect moments of our lives so great is that we forget about ourselves. This is what love is, to throw away our own will. This is why a saint does not need a bucket list. A saint knows how to forget himself habitually, and is able to put away his calculator and stopwatch, and instead is able to be perfectly present to the reality in front of him. Saints learn to do this by loving heaven, where things are not measured.
Halloween is such a fun holiday because it gives life to the idea that we can become whomever we want to be. Although pagan and immature on the surface, Halloween's tradition of costuming points to a desire deep within to become something we are not. That desire, I submit to you, is to become a saint, to become our best selves and everything we ever promised ourselves we would be. The saints are those friends of ours who when faced with every circumstance and rationalization that we face, still continued to that great adventure of life that in losing our lives we will begin to truly live. We should remember on All Saints Day that becoming the saint we were meant to be is an adventure that makes our bucket lists look silly. They key is not to have many perfect moments in life, but to become a saint who knows how to make this moment perfect. Amen.
Solemnity of All Saints
1 November 2011
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
I've been able to do some amazing things in my life. 4 World Youth Days with the Popes, including in Paris where I got to meet John Paul II in person, and celebrated Mass with over 2 million people. I've concelebrated with Pope Benedict on the field at Yankee Stadium. The day I was ordained a priest was incredible. I have been to South Africa to the World Cup. I've celebrated Mass near the tomb of St. Peter in Rome. I've climbed 14ers in Colorado with friends. I was in Lawrence for the 2008 national championship. And my latest thrill - I was at Arrowhead last night for the miracle victory over the Chargers. That place was wild. Absolutely nuts, like Mass street in 2008 - only with costumes. It was an amazing thrill and so much fun to be there. It was like I had died and gone to heaven!
However, I would have to say that as grateful as I am for these moments, I am not living my life checking off a bucket list. This is no way for a Christian to live. Although there are thousands of more things I would like to do and people I would like to meet and places I would like to go on this earth, I don't really have a bucket list. There is really only one thrill that I have set my heart on, and that thrill is this. When the saints go marching in, oh when the saints go marching in, oh how I'd like to be in that number, when the saints go marching in.
I'm not talking about Drew Brees touchdowns, of course. Not those saints. And I don't mean to bring to mind the Mardi Gras debauchery that this jazzy tune about the saints sometimes arouses. No, I am talking about the real thing. The only remaining thrill that I need to experience, the only one I desperately want to experience, is to be in that number, when the saints go marching in. The only thing I want to feel is what it's like to die and go to heaven.
The promise of heaven, my friends, has to excite us, because what has been promised to us in heaven is so beautiful that we will not be able to look away from its beauty. What has been promised is without compare in this world, for even the most beautiful and perfect moments of our lives pass away, but in heaven they will not. There is something wrong with us if we cannot get excited about this promise, if we impoverish heaven to nothing more than bonus time to an existence we already know. Heaven is not overtime. Heaven is no longer measured, so the perfect moments do not pass away. No, heaven is promised to be something quite different. For eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned upon man, what God has in store for those who love him.
The saints who we celebrate today on our solemnity teach us how to love heaven, and in so doing, they are able to bring heaven to earth, and to live today as we will live forever. The saints teach us that being with God forever in heaven will hold no value in our lives if we do not enjoy being with God now. Our bucket list will always be more important to us than seeking the kingdom of heaven, if being with God now does not excite us. The saints teach us how to love God in our real earthly circumstances with all our heart and mind and strength, and in contemplating heaven they learned how to live outside the measurements of time and space. Saints in a spiritual way always grow younger by contemplating heaven, because in heaven you don't get older. In desiring heaven, saints learned how to turn the clock off that makes perfect moments of our lives fade and pass away, and instead found the key to making every moment perfect by being fulling present to that moment.
This is why we are called to love heaven. Not because it will afford us more time to complete our bucket lists, but because heaven is the constant self-forgetfulness that makes ecstatic moments possible. The perfect moments of our lives are those moments when we lose our sense of self in the midst of something bigger than ourselves. Sin is nothing more than trying to make ourselves more important than the reality present to us, it is trying to assert self-importance when self-forgetfulness is the path to real freedom. Death is the just punishment for sin, for it puts an end to the sinner's ability to grow older and older and older by making life smaller and smaller and smaller through our own measurements.
Again, what makes the perfect moments of our lives so great is that we forget about ourselves. This is what love is, to throw away our own will. This is why a saint does not need a bucket list. A saint knows how to forget himself habitually, and is able to put away his calculator and stopwatch, and instead is able to be perfectly present to the reality in front of him. Saints learn to do this by loving heaven, where things are not measured.
Halloween is such a fun holiday because it gives life to the idea that we can become whomever we want to be. Although pagan and immature on the surface, Halloween's tradition of costuming points to a desire deep within to become something we are not. That desire, I submit to you, is to become a saint, to become our best selves and everything we ever promised ourselves we would be. The saints are those friends of ours who when faced with every circumstance and rationalization that we face, still continued to that great adventure of life that in losing our lives we will begin to truly live. We should remember on All Saints Day that becoming the saint we were meant to be is an adventure that makes our bucket lists look silly. They key is not to have many perfect moments in life, but to become a saint who knows how to make this moment perfect. Amen.
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