The Solemnity of All Saints
today reminds us of who we are and what a bright future can be ours. As we
celebrate today all the saints, both those canonized and those who are unknown,
we are joyful that they have reached the goal of life, heaven. They remind us
to keep our sights fixed high, to remember who we are and the glorious
possibility that God offers us. The saints encourage us in our own struggles
because like us they also endured struggles, they grew from strength to
strength, they matured in the Lord as they grew in years. We also see this
journey of growth in the great people of the Bible. We could think of Abraham
whom Genesis tells us pretended his wife was his sister because he was afraid
but Abraham grew to become our father in faith[1].
Moses had a speech impediment and had murdered and protested against being
called by God but he led his people to the Promised Land[2].
In the Gospels Peter is impulsive and doesn’t want the Lord to suffer but in
Acts he is totally transformed and considers it an honor to suffer for the
Lord. Interestingly in Acts even Peter’s shadow is a source of healing,
something which is not said of Jesus in the Gospels. Obviously Peter’s
Formation Adviser was out of this world! The journey of growth in the great
people of the Bible is also seen in the canonized saints. The Curé of Ars
struggled with learning while in seminary but so many pilgrims went to Ars to
confess to him that by 1855 there was a daily service of two horse buses
between Lyons and Ars, and two other buses met the Paris train at Villefranche.
The railway station in Lyons even had a special ticket office for people going
to Ars, so many were the pilgrims. St. Augustine struggled with impurity in his
youth. As a teenager he was influenced by the loose living of his companions.
When he was studying in Carthage he decided to take a mistress. He was such a
scoundrel that he even once said to his mother St. Monica that there would be
no problems between them if she gave up her faith! He underwent a conversion in
Milan and went on to become a priest at the age of 36 and a bishop at the age
of 41, and was Bishop of Hippo in North Africa for 35 years. One example of the
influence Augustine has on the Church is that in the Catechism of the Catholic
Church there are more quotations from St. Augustine than from any other writer.
St. Ignatius of Loyola had a colorful past before his conversion. In 1515
Ignatius and his brother Pedro Lopez were arrested and prosecuted for nocturnal
misdemeanors that were outrageous. Ignatius says up to his twenty-sixth year he
was given to worldly vanities. He was proud, sensuous, and driven by violent
and powerful impulses, he demanded adventure and glory. But after his
conversion he noticed that day dreaming about the saints brought him joy but
not worldly matters. And thus gradually he developed the rules for discernment
of spirits and established the Society of Jesus. He established a college in
Rome for young men entering the Society of Jesus and also set up colleges in
Jerusalem, Cyprus and Constantinople. At his death in 1556 the Society of Jesus
had 1000 members with 100 houses throughout the world. We see this same journey
of growth in the lives of all the saints. The saints remind us of who we really are, the reality
described by John in our second reading: we are God’s children now; what we
shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we
shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is[3].
Not only the saints’ lives but also their writings are precious gifts of grace
to us to remind us of who we are and the glory that God is offering to us. We treasure the Confession of St.
Augustine with its words, “You have made us for yourself O Lord and our hearts
are restless until they rest in Thee.” Although the saints had much room for growth early in their
lives by the end of their lives we see that they were living the beatitudes of
our Gospel today[4]. Therefore
they give encouragement to us as we are aware of our need for further growth.
The saints were happy because they were poor in spirit, meek, hungering and
thirsting for righteousness, merciful and clean of heart. Among the saints we
venerate in a special way the martyrs. As our first reading from Revelation
states: These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they
have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb[5].
They remind us to keep our sights fixed high, to remember who we are and the
glorious possibility that God offers us. We know that they are praying for us. We
hope and pray that all those near and dear to us who have departed are already
or will be numbered among the saints and so we pray for them especially during
this month. I conclude with our second reading: Beloved, we are God’s children
now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is
revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has
this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure[6]
• AE
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario