Life! - Homilies for the Sacred Paschal Triduum

Readings for Thursday, March 29 / Holy Thursday: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14  |  Psalm 116  |  1 Corinthians 11:23-26  |  John 13:1-15


Readings for Friday, March 30 / Good Friday: Isaiah 52:13-53:12  |  Psalm 31  |  Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9  |  John 18:1-19:42


Readings for Sunday, April 1 / Easter Sunday: Acts 10:34, 37-43  |  Pslam 118  |  Colossians 3:1-4  |  John 20:1-9

Lent: Why the Cross - Homily for March 25

Readings for Sunday, March 25 / Palm Sunday: Isaiah 50:4-7  |  Psalm 22  |  Philippians 2:6-11  |  Mark 14:1-15:47

Why the Cross? Because any other way would be too easy to dismiss the message that the Cross conveys.

Triduum & Easter Homilies

Here are the recordings of the Triduum and Easter liturgies as celebrated here at St. Ann Church & St. Vincent Mission.


Readings for Holy Thursday


Readings for Good Friday

Readings for the Paschal Vigil

Readings for Easter Sunday

The Three Ways - Homily for October 9

Readings for Sunday, October 9 / 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time: 2 Kings 5:14-17  |  Psalm 98  |  2 Timothy 2:8-13  |  Luke 17:11-19

The second reading today is St. Paul's letter to Timothy and he is writing about the sufferings he is
baring and how he is even in chains for the love of Christ and for the good of the Gospel as he goes forth to spread the good news of salvation in the world. It's a common thing for him to do - indeed in the lives of the saints as indicated throughout the centuries that it's a good thing for us to reflect on the ways in which we suffer with the Lord, to reflect upon on own sufferings, to reflect upon the sufferings of Christ. In light of that, it came to me of another account of one who was praying with the idea of sufferings - St. Faustina Kowalska. St. Faustina is the great apostle of Divine Mercy. If you pray the Divine Mercy chaplet or if you've ever heard of the Divine Mercy, it came through her. The Lord Jesus appeared to her and gave her the good news to be able to spread His mercy to the world. St. Faustina was one who received a special grace of receiving visions from Christ. The Lord came and gave her a unique experience - not just meditating on the mysteries of the sufferings of Jesus - but experiencing them herself: to experience what it was to be scourged, to experience the crown of thorns, to experience the pain and sorrow of His heart of being rejected by His disciples as they all fled except for John. She experienced these things in a unique way. She knew the sufferings of Jesus, and she tried to unite herself to them. One day she was in the chapel and the Lord came and gave her a different experience of sufferings. And He showed her a multiple of a people, a great number of people; three groups. He looked at her and said, "Do you see these people?" She said, "Yes." And He described them to her, "See the first group. They are simply holding their cross. The second, they have their cross on their shoulder. They are walking, but dragging their cross behind them reluctantly. The third group - see that they are nailed to their cross." She gazed out and saw these things, and the Lord said to her: to the extent to which you unite yourself to my suffering (to the extent to which you nail yourself to the cross, to allow yourself to die) to that extent you will also be with Me in glory. To the extent that you suffer with me, to that extent you will receive glory. That's essentially what St. Paul also says in the scripture today, that if we die with Christ we will live with Him, and if we persevere, we will reign with Him. If we allow ourselves to be united to Christ in His suffering, in imitation of His obedience to the Father, we will share in His glory.

That story came to mind because we essentially see those three groups of people, those three responses to the will of God, in the scriptures today. Two of those we see embodied in the person of Naaman. The ones holding their crosses are the ones who recognize the cross; they see the cross, they know the plan of God, and yet they say, "No." They recognize the cross, but refuse to follow. That was Naaman. We saw in past days (it's not in full text here today) that Naaman was one who was very hard of heart. He was one who was inflicted with an illness. It was common for one to go from place to place to place to find who might be the best healer so that you might be healed. Evidently Naaman had tried a number of places, and yet they were not effective. And so he goes to Elisha, the great prophet of Israel and successor to Elijah, because he knows Elisha is a man of great power, a man of God. Naaman comes to Elisha and says, "I want to be healed. What do I do?" Elisha say, "Go dip yourself seven times in the river." And Naaman comments that there is nicer water where he is from, and that he has seen more healings over there - that seems a rather small thing to do, rather simple, just to dunk himself in the water seven times. "No. I'm not doing that. That's too simple. God doesn't work that way, God wouldn't heal that way. It has to be something much bigger." And he starts to walk away. He sees his cross and says no. Naaman begins to leave, but one of his servants comes up to him and tells him to stop. The servants says, "If He had asked you to do something great and big, something difficult, you would've easily done it because you would've thought that was the will of God for you. But He's asking you to do something so simple. Just to go to the river and wash in it seven times. You've come all this way, all this time, all this effort, all this money, resources for us all to come here with you. Why not just go try?" And Naaman has a moment of conversion and says ok. He goes, plunges seven times in the water (that's where we pick up today) and he is healed. He goes back to Elisha because he realizes who God is, that God doesn't work in exactly the manner he desires, but he is willing to follow the Lord as the Lord desires. To do God's will, rather than to hold the cross, look at it and say no. But rather to climb upon the cross and allow himself and his will to be crucified, that the will of the Father might be made manifest.

It's interesting that he comes back to Elisha and he wants to give a gift, some type of monetary gift or donation to show his gratitude. A lot of times we see that - we receive a blessing from God and we want to do something in return. Elisha says, "No that's not why I'm here. I don't want anything." But we see an interesting response on Naaman's part who says that if Elisha won't take the gift than to at least let him take two mule loads of dirt back home. To us that seems an odd request, but for them it was quite sensible and a profound expression of faith. In the days of Elisha the prophet, there was an understanding that gods were localized, that there was a god of this place, and that place, and the god that place. Wherever you were that's where your god was, that's who your god was. When Naaman realizes he was healed, that's why he says, "Now I believe that there are no other gods, but the God of Israel [the God of this place]." All the others are fake. This One is real, and it's this One that I want to be with, it's this God. But he also knows that he wants to go back home where he's from, so he needs this God, of this land. He wants to take two mule loads worth of dirt, so that the God of Israel might come with him as he brings a part of Israel back home and that he could build an altar on that dirt, and there offer sacrifices to that God. He is essentially saying, "I've been healed and I want to do anything and everything to be united to this God because I know this One has power." A great testament of faith.

We see a similar testament in the Gospel as we have the ten lepers. Again, one of them is cleansed and comes back and throws himself at the feet of Jesus, much like Naaman did with Elisha, thanking God for such a profound blessings. Again, he too realizes the way in which God has worked, that the will of God has been made manifest. He climbs up onto the cross to rejoice and follow the Lord, whatever may be the cost.

These are two great examples, but the problem is that group of the nine. The nine should trouble us a bit. The nine who receive healing from Jesus Himself. They too receive that simple penance of go wash in the water, except it's go show yourself to the priest - an easy thing. They don't expect God to work in that way, but they kind of humor Him in a sense. And when they are healed, they don't come back. And that group is the middle group that was describe to St. Faustina - the one's who pick up their cross, but still try to go their own way, they drag it grudgingly because they don't really want to follow the will of God, but they will if they have to. That's them - the nine. The ones who go offer, and they recognize the will of God. They go with it a bit, but they still try to make it their own path, still try to make the cross their own, not simply to climb upon it and allow the Father's will to be perfectly completed.

My brothers and sisters, the nine is the easy way, and the nine is us. We are the nine. A lot of times we can be the one who is reluctant and completely hard-hearted to God, and a lot of times we can be the one that's completely open to God and everything He desires of us perfectly. But majority of the time, we are the nine. We are the ones who accept the will of God, but we still want it our way. "I'll do your will Father, but let me tell you how it should be done, when it should be done, and what manner it should be done. I'll do Your will Lord. I'll allow myself to suffering a bit, but I'm not going to the extent at which You desire. I'll do your will, but I'm not going all the way." It's a reluctance of our hearts. Second best when it comes to it.

The scary thing is - the devil loves second best. He loves it. We don't talk about the devil enough these days, unfortunately. Maybe I should. But the devil is real, and the scriptures say that he is prowling about like a roaring lion waiting for someone to devour. He's looking after each of us, every moment of the day, he and the other demons of the earth, prowling around trying to find ways to lead us from Christ. They are not so foolish as to come and put the thought in our mind to completely reject Jesus or completely reject His will. They are not foolish enough to think that we would fall for that because usually we see it for what it is, that it's clearly not God, clearly something that's turning me away from Christ, no. When we see a firm rejection of Christ, we usually recognize it for what it is. The devil knows that. Rather choose that path and be completely rejected, the devil encourages us to choose second best. Whatever he can do to get us a little bit closer to himself and a little bit farther from Christ. Anything that he can do to gain us a little less grace than we would have, to love Christ a little less than we could have, to be able to follow the Lord a little less closely and to be more concerned with my will than I would have been otherwise. That's what the devil loves, and it's our job not to make the devil happy. It's our job to reject his lies, because he's a lie and a deceiver. So often, he points out things to us a if they were good, but it's only because he knows they are the second best, and it's his hope to draw us away form the Lord.

Christ calls us, and He calls us to perfect obedience. To allow ourselves to truly be crucified, and not simply to grudgingly carry our cross, dragging it behind us. He calls us to much more because He wants us to have His glory. Remember, if we die with Him, we will live with Him, and if we persevere, we will reign with Him. To the extent that we allow our sufferings to be united to Him in this life, to the extent that we are obedient to the Father in imitation of Him, to that same extent we will share in His glory. That's a big thing - to allow ourselves to rejoice in the glory of God the Father for eternity. It's the good that Christ calls us to.

There are many things that we could reflect upon on how we respond to the will of God. We could look at how we bear our own crosses, our own sufferings. We could look at the ways in which we desire healing, much like the ones in the Gospels. We could look at the ways in which we struggle with the will of God in various other courses of our life. But I want to invite you to reflect upon three ways in which God calls us to Himself. They are rather simple, and yet I think they are the foundation of our entire life of faith. How obedient are we to the Father's will in the manner of these three things: confession, Mass and daily prayer.

I've often said, and preached a number of times about it, that for us to have growth in the spiritual life, for us to have a life of faith that's actually nourishing and productive, producing fruits of the Holy Spirit, we must go to confession monthly, Mass weekly, and prayer daily. You want growth? There is your system. The Church sets the bar rather low for us because She knows it's difficult for us sometimes, because we do struggle with carrying the cross - nine out of the ten lepers struggled with it. The Church recognizes and sets the bar low for us, but encourages us to go higher. We are required to go to confession once a year. But who among us would rather go an entire year of harming relationships only to have to say, "I'm sorry" once and it covers everything? Do we not rather whenever we hurt someone we love, go back and apologize rather quickly? Do we not rather go back and ask forgiveness for our faults, rather than wait for 2, 10, 12 months later when it doesn't really hit us as much? To go to Reconciliation regularly is a wonderful grace to allow us to encounter the mercy and healing of Christ, to heal the relationship which is so often wounded by our sins though we can be unaware of it.

The Church calls us to go to Mass once a week. We are obligated once a week on Sundays to attend Holy Mass as well as on the Holy Days of Obligation, so it's about 57 times a year. This year you get off easy because a couple of Holy Days are on Sunday, so I think we are down to 55 days, 55 hours, that God calls us to be at Mass. 55 hours. Who among us has worked more than 55 hours in the past week? Think about the time you put in just in a workweek or the time you spend just on your children or grandchildren. Think about those relationships and how important they are for you. God calls us for 57 hours roughly, a very small amount. He would love more, certainly. But for us to be able to recognize that. Even if that's the best we can do, because work obligations sometimes prevent us from getting to daily Mass and such, but if that's the best we can do - it's to squeeze every drop of the joy, grace and peace that we can out of this Mass. To enter into it as fully as we can, and to rejoice in the celebration of Mass, this encounter with Christ in the altar.

Lastly, daily prayer. Daily prayer is really the key to all of this because we can go to confession frequently, we can go to Mass weekly, but if we don't have that encounter with prayer, our relationship with Christ really will not grow. Because basically it becomes simply a means of becoming a checklist conversation. Our novena prayers, where you pray the same thing every week, on Thursdays we pray a novena to the Mother of Perpetual Help, it's good, it's holy, it's beautiful. But if our relationship with the Lord is based off a script, there's an issue. If our relationship with Christ is based of someone else's words or prayer, rather than my own encounter with Him, allowing my heart to speak to Him and His heart to speak to me, than it's not really a relationship. It's a book, a story we read about. It's not a relationship with Christ.

How faithful are we in obedience to the Father? Confession, Mass, daily prayer. He sets the bar low because He wants us to come, but as soon as we commit, He invites us to come higher, to go more, to go farther, because He loves us. Because He wants us to share in His glory. He wants to have us experience His peace, ultimately just like the ones in the scriptures, because He wants to heal our aching hearts.

Let us pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit in this Mass, the Holy Spirit who is already residing in our hearts by virtue of Baptism, that He might come and be stirred up once again. As the Lord Jesus comes to us in the gift of the Eucharist, we might be able to have those blessed gifts come and conform our hearts, soften our hearts convert our hearts once more today, to be able to seek the will of the Father and to do it with joy.

Everything is Meaningless! Praying with the 'vanity of vanities'

Readings for Sunday, July 31/ 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time:
Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23
Psalm 90
Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11
Luke 12:13-21

This week the Holy Father has been in Poland for the celebration of World Youth Day. 2 Million youth and young adults from around the world have gathered for Mass, prayer, catechesis, and to share in the joy of being a universal Church. What intrigued me in watching the various celebrations was the face of Pope Francis. In the majority of the encounters with people he was his usual jovial self - smiles illuminating his eyes and the joy of the Gospel written on his face. When he went to the concentration camp at Auschwitz it was different though. His face as he walked around the grounds and prayed at the various sites was one of a solemn and somber nature. You could see in his face and body posture the weight of a profound mystery, the great sufferings endured by so many people.

Some of the survivors of the Holocaust have written and spoken of the horrors that took place within those gates. Many recall how some of the most faithful people among them lost all faith as they endured and witnessed the suffering and death of their friends, families, neighbors, and their own selves. Many, it is said, were the ones who cried out in search of the meaning of it all – What is the point of this?! Why is this happening?! What is the meaning of it all?!

Viktor Frankl was a man who himself endured great suffering in Auschwitz. He lost most of his family there and was subjected to the inhumane conditions that claimed the lives of so many. But as he endured it all, he also reflected on it. Victor Frankl was a psychologist and he continued his labor as such even in the camp. He tells of how the Nazi guards would intentionally starve the prisoners for long periods of time and then throw a small bit of bread into the middle of the yard so they could watch the prisoners tear at each other in hopes of getting a few scraps. Many did so, seeking to feed themselves before others who were more in need. But Frankl also noticed that in the face of these attempts at dehumanization, there were many who kept their dignity and some who were able to attain a piece of bread that immediately brought it to others more in need of it than themselves. This made him think about the differences between people in the camp, particularly in how they viewed their future. He came to realize that if one had lost hope and had nothing to look forward to, they often died in the camp. On the opposite end, many who were subjected to great trials endured them on account of their desire to fulfill some hope they still clung to. Ultimately Frankl survived his time in Auschwitz and was freed, after which he wrote a book called “Man’s Search for Meaning” in which he provided an axiom that described his experience: if we have a why to live, we can endure almost any how. Or in Christian terms, if we have hope, we can carry any cross.

The readings this weekend help us to grapple with this mystery a bit too, particularly in regards to the reading from Ecclesiastes, which is rather jolting. This is the one and only time we hear from Ecclesiastes in the three-year Sunday readings, so I encourage you to go read through it yourself. What you will likely experience as you start to read through it is a sense that it is quite different than the rest of the books of the Bible. While many have historical or a more positive theological tone, Ecclesiastes is the gut-wrenching cry of an anguished heart: Vanity of vanities! Everything is vanity! The Hebrew word for ‘vanity’ is ‘hevel’ and is also translated as a waste, a breath, vapor, useless, meaningless, and the like. Qoheleth cried out in frustration as he sees that he works and labors with skill and all he works to attain will be left behind to another person who has done nothing to deserve it. He goes through an contemplates how he can have all wealth, power, honor, health, and worldly wisdom, and in the end he will die the same as someone who has none of it. What is the point of this life? he challenges the invisible God. Vanity of vanities! Like chasing after the wind. This litany of frustrations is not the end of the book, however. In response to all of these things and the vanity of being consumed with the things of the world, the writer concludes that we ought simply to enjoy the things that come our way and to follow the way of the Lord. So if you have wealth, health, wisdom, power, honor, and the like, enjoy it and use it well. But don’t make that your goal. These are not what matters to God and this is what he New Testament passages clearly remind us.

St. Paul tells the Colossians to set their eyes on the things that are above, not the things that are on earth, and the same applies to use. Do you not know, brothers and sisters, that you have died in Christ? Then think of heavenly things – the Blessed Trinity, the glory of the saints, the joy of the angels, the beauty of heaven. Set your hearts there and store up those riches. The earthly riches are nothing in comparison. The wealthy man in the Gospel who stores up great quantities to permit himself years of rest and relaxation is met with the voice of the Lord telling him he won’t even survive the night. Be rich, then, in the things that actually matter to God. And what is it that matters to God? What’s most important to God? You might rephrase it with that of another Gospel narrative: What is the greatest commandment? You know the answer. Love God, love neighbor. So what is it that matters to God? Love God, love neighbor.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Franciscan priest who himself endured suffering and death within the gates of Auschwitz. One of the norms at the camp was that if someone tried to escape or actually escaped, 10 or so men would be killed as a sort of penalty. The purpose was to dissuade trying to get out of the camp, using the possible death of family and friends as a deterrent. One day someone did escape and so a group of men were chosen to be killed. One of them began to weep and cry ‘My wife! My children!’ He had a ‘why’ to endure the ‘how’ of life there. Hearing this plea, Maximilian stepped forward and volunteered himself to take that man’s place. The guards, unconcerned about who was killed, agreed and Maximilian went to his death and the martyrs crown. Love God, love neighbor. The man survived and was later reunited with his family because St. Maximilian had a purpose and it ended in a heavenly union.

Viktor Frankl himself chose on many occasions to love God and love neighbor instead of caving to his own desires and giving up hope. When he could have tried to rest and care for himself, he instead spent many nights talking to the men who surrounded him in the bunks. As they would begin to despair he would simply begin asking questions to them one by one. Do you have an family left? And if they said yes, he would encourage them to think about being reunited. Do you have friends somewhere? Again, wouldn’t it be great to be reunited. Is there some place you’d love to travel to or some activity you’d love to do? What joy to be able to do so! Over and over and over again, by loving God and his neighbor Frankl gave hope to countless men in the camp and encouraged them to find meaning in the life they lived. As those men began to love God and love neighbor – whether outside or inside the camp – they grew in the health, wealth and wisdom that matters to God: love.

All of those is simply a shadow and reminder of the great love shown to humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, who loved God and neighbor even unto His death on the Cross.

So the end point is this: if you have worldly riches and blessings, enjoy them. But remember that out goal is not earthly pleasure but heavenly joy. Every human heart must face that reality at some point. Whether in the past, present, or future. Whether it is us personally or someone we know or even someone we don’t know. All of us are faced with those questions at times that make us want to cry out Vanity of Vanities! What is the meaning of all of this?! In those moments, when hope seems to be waning and despair increasing, when confusion seems to triumph over reason, remember your purpose. Remember the ‘why’ of life that can help you get through any ‘how’. Love God, love neighbor.

...the rest of the story.

Readings for Sunday, June 19/ 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Zechariah 12:10-11; 13:1
Psalm 63
Galatians 3:26-29
Luke 9:18-24

Earlier this week I sat down and decided to look through our parish directory from the early 90’s. I looked through every page and every family, recognizing many faces and knowing that there are others not pictures and many who have gone to their eternal reward. It was neat to see everyone 20+ years ago – and not just because of the hairstyles! – because it helped me to remember that there is still much about you and this community that I don’t know.

When we get to know another person or place, we only know it from our first encounter onward and the past is but a story and not something we can experience firsthand. It can be easy to forget about all of the past things and simply see the person as the one we’ve come to know, but in doing so we necessarily miss some things. This is exactly what the Lord is helping the disciples to realize today in the Gospel passage we just heard. The disciples knew Jesus from His ministry and saw Him largely in that light. The people from His hometown, on the opposite end, would struggle to see the great wonder-worker because they only saw Him as the regular guy from their hometown. And the Lord has to provide to all of them the fuller picture. He asks who people say that He is and they respond with the answers of various great prophetic figures. Without even acknowledge the responses, He asks who the disciples say that He is. This is something every one of us must give thought to at points in our life, who is the Jesus we claim to know and serve? Peter’s response wins him a rebuke and in other Gospel accounts the note that he received this knowledge from the Father and not simply early wisdom. Not to stop there, the Lord continues with the rest of the story. The disciples would have no problem accepting the Lord as a miraculous person, a wonder-worker of the highest order who did things that none had ever seen before. They could accept Him as a great ruler, meant to save the Israelites from the opposing nations. But what they struggled to accept was the very truth of what followed: the necessity of the suffering to come. The proclamation that the Lord would soon be rejected by the rulers of the land, crucified, and be then raised from the dead was a hard pill to swallow. And what’s more, the Lord said they would have to pick up their cross daily to follow in His path.

No innocent man was meant to carry a cross. It was the condemned who carried the wood to their place of crucifixion and so the Lord invites us to see ourselves as already condemned, as already dead to this world. If we submit to this reality, then we can truly be raised up in a sense to a new life in this world that is marked by the virtues and life of Christ. And so we pick up our cross. Daily. Each day has it’s cross and the biggest of crosses that each of us has to bear is other people. And for those other people, the cross is you and me.

Last week’s tragic violence in Orlando has given our world one more opportunity among others to reject the cross and to seek shelter in our ‘safe places’. It’s a natural tendency of the human person to seek others with whom we find similarities – the people who have similar interests, similar histories, who speak the same, and believe the same things. We find what is comfortable in our circles, which is not bad in itself. The problem is that so often these differences are used to build walls around ourselves so that we become various groups of ‘us versus them’ and the difference are used to assert superiority. This is what St. Paul is writing about to the Galatians. They are beginning to squabble over groups – male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free. These would traditionally be understood as one being superior and the other inferior. In response St. Paul writes to remind them that in Christ all are one and that there is not male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free. He isn’t saying that those difference don’t exist, indeed they do, but that the differences don’t matter when it comes to equality and the charity toward others. And the same applies to us in our society today. There are so many groups that are different from one another, but we find ourselves on shaky ground when we begin to use those as indicators of superiority or as the limits of our charity. That because someone is in the group of ‘them’ regarding LGBT, muslims, guns, Trump, Hillary, or whatever that we have no obligation to love them or show kindness. And this is the cross – the obligation to love our neighbors even when we don’t agree, especially on very important things. In this we follow the example of Jesus that we heard recently as He at in the house of Simon the Pharisee – that the woman was weeping at His feet and Simon thought to himself “If he knew who and what sort of woman that this is, he wouldn’t let her do this!” ‘She’s one of the THEM!’ he thinks to himself and in doing so shows his lack of charity toward her, as well as toward the Lord. The Lord loved her, despite her sinfulness and ‘otherness’ and in doing so, drew her to Himself.

I came across a quote from St. John Bosco earlier this week that has resonated with me through these recent days: “This was the method that Jesus used with the apostles. He put up with their ignorance and roughness and even their infidelity. He treated sinners with a kindness and affection that caused some to be shocked, others to be scandalized and still others to hope for God’s mercy. And so He bade us to be gentle and humble of heart.”

The Lord loved everyone before Him from the sinful woman to the hard-hearted Simon and in doing so gave every person the chance to follow after Him. He acknowledged differences, but chose to love the other still. In doing so there is a great ease in ruffling feathers and causing controversy. He knew this and it was because of His humility that these things did not matter; He simply bore the daily cross, which culminated in the greatest of humiliations on Calvary. Are we willing to do the same? To recognize divisions, yet to see ‘them’ as worth loving and liking. To forgive when the other isn’t sorry. To accept harsh words and to bite our tongue instead of spouting harsh words back. When someone hurts us somehow the temptation can be to assume the worst, but it is the call of the Christian to go out of our way to make excuses for ‘them.’ “They know not what they do” the Lord pleaded to the Father in the midst of crucifixion. And so we have the joy daily of picking up our cross and following the Christ by showing love to each person before us, even to the point of death.

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto Thine.

Hidden Saints

A few of the saints...

Readings for Sunday, November 1/ All Saints Day:
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14

Psalm 24
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

Today we have the joy of celebrating in the Sunday celebration the feast of All Saints, that blessed feast when we call to mind the great crowd on men and women who have gone before us and reign gloriously with Jesus in Heaven. One of the awesome points is the universality expressed by such a fact: that all are called to Heaven. Male and female, rich and poor, old and young, regardless of time or place or any other factor that is found in this world. If you are a human, you are called to heavenly life, called to be a saint.

In other homilies I’ve mentioned the fact rather clearly that you and I are called to be saints and from time to time I hear remarks to the effect that ‘Father, I certainly can’t be a saint!’ My response is simply this: you can and you must, for there is but one fate for those who are not saints and it’s not a pleasant one. To be a saint is not necessarily to be a superhero of the spiritual life. Too often when we think of saints we call to mind those great men and women of faith whose lives are models of sanctity to which it would indeed be difficult for us to attain. St. Jean Vianney would survive for days at a time on a few meager bites of old potatoes. St. Pio of Pietrelcina endured the wounds of the stigmata for some 50 years. St. John Paul II was shot in an assassination attempt and them went to forgive the shooter personally. St. Francis of Assisi in his zeal to strip himself of all earthly things began to give away his possessions and when confronted by his father who said, ‘You cannot give everything away, for that tunic was purchased with my money!’ stripped himself naked in the middle of town and went away to go find some scraps of cloth with which to make a new wardrobe. Now, I’m pretty sure we’re not called to strip naked in town at this point, that was presumably one of those events that just had to happen once in the life of the Church to mark it off the list. I mean, we’re going to be in Heaven for eternity, it’s good to have a great store of stories to fall back on to tell! But more seriously, those are the images we often recall when we think of saints, but the truth is that for every one of those great saints there is a great number of humble quiet saints who are enjoying the fruit of a life lived well, though not notably. Is this not what we profess in our faith?

As I was driving around the area blessing graves this weekend I noticed the great many cemeteries in the area – family cemeteries, public ones, and ones connected to various congregations – all full of stones marking the faithful departed. How many thousands just in our little slice of the world have died with the belief that they would be given the reward of their labors in this life? Are they not saints? I sure hope they are, or at least on their way!

Regardless of whether one’s life is a light shining on a mountaintop for the world to see or hidden in the Heart Christ, the call remains the same: to become saints. And to accomplish this we look to those who have gone before us as models and intercessors. The prayers of the Mass remind us of these realities over and over. They are models for us to follow, images into which we look and discern how we might imitate them. Here is the beauty of the universality of the saints in Heaven – that there’s a patron saint for anything and everything you can endure in this life. Are you a teenager (most of us here aren’t) but there’s a patron saint for you – St. Maria Goretti, whose relic happens to be here on the altar today. Do you like shooting handguns? There’s a patron saint of handgunners, St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother, who is also here on the altar. Do you suffer from headaches? St. Teresa of Avila is the patron saint of people who suffer from headaches. Did you know there’s a patron saint of the internet? True story. It’s St. Isidore, who happens also to be the patron saint of farmers. Maybe the Church in her wisdom is subtly telling those who spend much time on the internet to go outside and play in the dirt once in a while? These and others are the ones who have walked the paths before us and provide us a model of how to live and can intercede for us on account of their special connections to us. Just as we’re attracted to people with whom we have things in common, so it is with the saints. And not just that – there are saints we can pray to as patrons of our parish, diocese, ones whose feast lies on our birthday, baptismal day, confirmation, wedding, children’s birthday and more. Saints all over the place! And rightly so. It’s the normal course of the Christian life to become a saint, Pope Francis reminds us, but it is a course that must be chosen. And here is the key to everything: choosing.

St. Paul of the Cross

The closing line of the reading from Revelation that we heard noted the great crowd before John, saying of them, “These are the ones who have survived the great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” They survived the great distress. In other words, they bore the cross God offered to them. They knew that the cross of Jesus was His throne of glory and their own crosses were the ladders to heaven and they rejoiced to climb them. This is how to become saints: by accepting what comes our way from Christ in such a way as to turn it into our glory. To do all things for love of Jesus. And if you struggle with carrying your cross, St. Paul of the Cross founded the Passionist Fathers, whose community shows us the joy of the cross - he's here on the altar too. Pray to him. Pray to all of them. Pray that we can become the saints we’re called to be.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

St. Ann, pray for us.

St. Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

All you holy men and women, pray for us.