All Saints Day and All Souls Day are
two special days in the Church that are very beloved by the faithful. Even so, we might ask ourselves what were are
really celebrating today on All Saints Day. In the early Church, when those
following the way of Jesus were persecuted in great numbers, being a saint was
synonymous with being a martyr, with giving up one’s life for the faith. In the early 4th century, the Church
commemorated a feast to remember all of the martyrs who gave their lives up for
the Church. This celebration in the Early Church was a precursor to All
Saints Day that we celebrate today.
When the Church became legally
recognized in the Roman empire, the definition of a saint was expanded beyond
martyrdom. As we celebrate the saints of our
Church today on All Saints Day, we might mistakenly believe that today’s
solemnity recognizes only those who have been named official “saints” by the
Church. In reality, today we recognize all of the saints in our community of
faith, all who have lived out the faith throughout the centuries and who have
passed down the faith to us. We recognize all who have led lives of faith and holiness. Some of these men and women were
famous and recognized throughout the world for their holiness. Others lived out the faith in quiet,
gentle, humility without official canonization by the Church.
When we think of a saint, it is true
that we are thinking of a person that lived out a life of holiness, of a person
that was true to his faith and true to the way God called him to live out his
vocation as a Christian. But, the saints were not
perfect. They were not without flaws. When it came out several years ago
that Mother Teresa of Calcutta suffered from a dark night of the soul and felt
abandoned by God for most of the time she ministered to the poor, many people
were shocked and scandalized, thinking that it took away from her holiness. Yet, for me, the opposite is
true. It should help us understand Mother
Teresa for who she really was, for all she had to overcome in order to serve
the Lord. The saints were very human, with
human strengths and human weaknesses. All of us as followers of Christ are
called to lives of holiness, called to strive to perfection. Yet, we do so in the midst of the
nitty-gritty reality of our lives, in the midst of our brokenness, our
weaknesses, and our struggles.
So, when we hear the Beatitudes
proclaimed by Jesus in the Gospel today, perhaps we see ourselves. Perhaps we are the poor in spirit,
praying for the faith to carry on and to make it to the next day. Sometimes the best we can do is to
take it one day at a time in the midst of our pain and our struggles, and we do
what we can to live out each day in service to the Lord. Perhaps we are those mourn, whose
love and compassion goes out to the neighbor who is suffering, whose mourning
goes out to those loved ones we no longer have in our lives or those loved ones
who are suffering. Perhaps we hunger and thirst for
righteousness in the midst of great pain, injustice, or violence. We yearn for a day when we as a
society can put all of this aside, when we can truly say we are proclaiming
God’s kingdom here on earth in what we say and in what we do.
In our humility, in our faithfulness,
in our simple gratitude to God, we are to strive to live out these attitudes
that Jesus proclaims today in the Beatitudes in the reality of our lives,
meaning that we are to make God the source, the strength, and the foundation of
who we are. As we honor the saints today, as we
recognize how they are very much a part of our lives, of how we rely on their
intercessions, we give thanks to God for the gift of the saints.
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