THE SAINTS TO BE.
November 1, 2020
Solemnity of All Saints
A Japanese proverb says, “The cat is a saint when there are
no mice about.” And a Bengali proverb adds, “Any new saint-to-be has his
miracles to make.”
All saints or all to be saints? The Christian life is a
vocation to holiness. We all are on a journey toward sainthood. Being on a
journey consequently means that we are not yet at our destination, we are not
yet saints, but saints to be.
According to our Catholic faith and the teachings of the Church, a saint is anyone in heaven, whether officially recognized (canonized) on earth or not, who form the “great cloud of witnesses” who have ridden themselves of every burden and sin that clings to them and persevere in running the race that was laid before them (Heb 12:1). The allusion here could be made of our different ancestors, parents and beloveds and people whose life had been a model, but that, because anonymous or not famous like Francis of Assis, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, John Paul II, or Luigi Orione, will never see their names appearing in any catalog or enchiridion of saints. Today’s solemnity celebrates those anonymous saints.
We are put in front of the equation of sainthood. This feast
reminds us of what we are all called to be. The sainthood or holiness, we can
sense from this celebration, is not a state, but a process. It is not a
destination but a lifestyle, a way of life. That is why it becomes our common
vocation. We could say, in a certain way, that we are all saints in substance,
but not yet in action.
The feast we celebrate today, as we said before, is a homage
to all the unknown saints who, we believe, are now in heaven. It reminds us
that sanctity is within everyone’s reach; that you and I can as well be saints.
Through the communion of Saints, what we profess through these words in the
Credo, “I believe in the communion of saints…”, we recognize that each part of
the mystical body of Christ, the Church, helps every other to grow in holiness.
This feast is a proclamation of our unity, collaboration, and togetherness in the
journey toward holiness. It appears clear that none of us becomes holy for
himself and by himself. It is together with others and for others that we are
made holy. Holiness is a journey in common and a community journey.
While we are rejoicing on the homage we give for those who
went and achieved holiness before us, the word of God today is made of visions
of life in heaven, our homeland. The book of Revelation speaks of the Johanic
vision. The Apostle John states that he “had a vision of a great multitude,
which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.”
Sainthood, from this apocalyptic vision, is not a prerogative of a specific
group, but a divine offer to all. Saints have no specific color, tongues, or
cultures. God created us all to be with him, that is, to be saints. But then,
that holiness can be fulfilled only after a battle against evil, the continual
battle of human existence. At the end of the battle of life, all who have been
with the Lamb will be marked with his seal on their foreheads.
The seal or the mark of the Lamb of God is love. It is only
through love and assiduous service to our needy brothers and sisters that we
will assure our access to heaven. Thus, Don Orione was right affirming,
“Charity, and only charity will save the world.” The Saint to be, therefore, is
the one who lives with love and in love, serves the needs of others. Only he
who loves will be granted to see God’s face and see him face to face.
The same Apostle John, in the second reading, tells us that
we too shall be granted that grace to see God as he is. This is because of his
love. For, in his great fatherly love, the Lord made us his children. But then,
John does not fail to mention that this identity of children of God, we have it
at the present, only in substance, not yet in its full manifestation. Because
“what we shall be has not yet been revealed.” We are saints in substance but
not yet in action. It is a yet to be and it will be so, based on the hope that
conditions our life. You want to be a saint, put then actions that lead to
sainthood. You dream of heaven, live then in a way that opens you the gates of
heaven.
The Gospel shows us the way. The Lord Jesus, in his sermon
on the mountain, exposes the key and the shortcut to holiness. It is called the
Beatitudes. Through these eight blessings, Jesus offers his disciples a way of
life that promises and leads to eternity. Pope Francis, commenting on the
Beatitudes rightly said they are “a Christian’s identity card.”
If we seek holiness and search for a way to see God and be
with him, he is that way: to live as poor in spirit; to be meek; to mourn, that
is to suffer for sin and with those who the sins of our society make suffer; to
hunger and thirst for righteousness; to be merciful; to be pure in heart; to be
a peacemaker in a world where war and hatred seem to be common values; and
lastly, to accept being persecuted and hated for righteousness sake, that is to
stand for the truth amid a corrupt world. In living according to these eight
values, they become for us the landmark of sainthood and the key to heaven.
Let us, however, not be short of realism. It is not easy to
be a saint. Moreover, it is not easy to live in the way of the Beatitudes. We
are made human, with our weaknesses. We have our pride that we always carry
with us in whatever we do or say and anywhere we go. We have our selfish
inclination that moves us into egoism and to abuse the rights of others. We are
loaded or overloaded with the body and it motions and solicitations leading us
to sin. How then do we take them with us in this journey toward holiness? Only
one thing is required from us: kill from within us the idolatry of the self,
our selfishness. So, come these other words of Pope Francis: “The Beatitudes
show the path from selfishness to holiness”.
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