The ABC of being Saints!
November 1, 2020: Solemnity of All SaintsRevelations 7: 2-4, 9-14; 1 John 3: 1-3; Matthew 5: 1-12
There is an ever loved and oft quoted anecdote about this sweet little boy who was taken to a traditional Cathedral for the first time by his mother. The boy was tremendously impressed with the splatter of colours on the floor due to the rays that shone through the stained glasses on the walls (remember those classic cathedrals, don't you... and they are becoming endangered specimen these days, with some of them converted to mosques and some others to public halls and themed restaurants!). Coming back to the boy, there for the first time, seeing all the splendour in glowing natural lights, he with his eyes wide open looked at those stained glasses and asked his mother...'mamma, what is this?' So used to his constant questions, the mother pointed to those stained glasses and replied in short, 'Oh... they are the saints!' The boy could not take his eyes or his mind off those pictures on the stained glass. That stuck to the boy's mind, not merely until he returned home but even further. And the next day at school when the catechism teacher asked, who are saints... he shouted out in excitement, "yes I know them." And when the teacher happily turned to him, he continued, "saints are those who let the light shine through them!"
I think that's the best definition for a saint by far. A saint is the one who lets the light, the light of the Lord, shine through him or her. The colours and the shades are exotic, but the light is from the Lord. The shapes and contours are all varied and impressive, but the source is one and the same, the light of the Lord! What a lovely image we have today, of all the saints standing in one choir, as one family, as one community of brothers and sisters, giving praises to the Lord! A grand day and a proportionately important reminder to each of us: you are called to be one of them, you are called to be a Saint!
The Word this day, read attentively, can provide us with a fundamental understanding of what it means to be a saint. They get us thinking, not only about all the saints we have out there, but also about the saint that we have to nourish and nurture within each of us. The Word furnishes us with an ABC of being saints, in our daily life, here and now!
A saint is one who ACKNOWLEDGES the supremacy of God, allowing God to take charge of one's life. This seems to be the most challenging task for human beings as centuries get past us. Human beings, as individual persons and as communities of persons, wish to become more and more autonomous, from everything and every one, even from God, considering God as someone who could infringe on our freedom, our decision making and our authority on our own lives. But all it takes is just a simple recollection of what has happened to humanity in history due to pride and self glory, to understand we are wrong to think of keeping God away from this world. We will be drastically failing.
The responsorial psalm today invites us to reflect on this absolute supremacy of God. Everything takes its existence from God. How can we ever think of doing away with the Master, as long as we hold on to what the Master has made and programmed and keeps sustaining? The first ever attitude that can bring us towards true sanctity, obviously, is acknowledgement of God's authority over everything, and specially, over my entire self. The more we acknowledge the primacy of God, the more grateful we become; the more grateful we become, the more holy we grow - that is the secret of being saints!
A saint is one who BELONGS totally to God, placing God at the centre of his or her life. Certainly, it does not suffice to acknowledge the authority of God over everything and over me, there is something more to it, when it comes to being saints. In simple terms, it is feeling close, feeling intimately connected, feeling totally grafted on to God - a bond which is like that which exists between a mother and a child, that connectedness that is not merely peripheral, but something that penetrates my very being! I am connected to my God, at the core of my being, at the depth of my soul, at the essence of my spirit, because it is from God I take my life, my image, my entire existence. I belong to God, totally.
In the second reading, John reminds us of who we are - we are children of God, that is what we are! Whether the world acknowledges or not, whether we acknowledge or not, the fact remains that we are children of God, and God will never renounce us, even if we do! God has loved us in to existence and loves us from all eternity. This love was manifest in the incarnation, when Christ came to show us whose image we bear, and to what image we should liken ourselves to. We belong to God who created us, the Lamb who has washed us and the Spirit who consecrates us into children of God, treasured possessions of God, images and likenesses of God, here on earth! The more we realise to whom we bleong, the more we understand who we really - that is the way of being saints!
A saint is one who COMMITS oneself to God's cause, to God's people, to God's will, on a daily basis! That we come from and belong to God, is truly a privilege, a great honour; but it is at the same time, a great challenge too, a call to commitment. As children of God, as people of God, as persons who acknowledge God and belong to God, we are called to manifest that in our daily life, in the ordinary choices we make and in every major decision we take! You will be criticised for it, calumniated against, painted as a threat, called names, jeered at, pictured as an outdated fool, useless misfit...yes! But can you give up? You just can not! There will be mighty forces lining up against you - the economic forces that tend to reduce everything to numbers and currencies, the political forces that are ready to do absolutely anything for the sake of power and position, the anti social forces that take joy and pride in disrupting peace of the people, the immoral forces that perpetrate corruption of everything including the souls of human persons...all these are mighty and they will stand against you! But can you give up? You just should not! Because you are from God, you belong to God and you are the Blessed of the Lord!
The Gospel outlines a way of life that is so surrealistic...that is indeed our roadmap to true holiness. Today, as Pope Francis repeats to us so very often, holiness does not consist in keeping ourselves aloof as refrigerated beings, we need to get down into the slush, get ourselves dirtied, fight our way, stand for the truth, march for justice, rise for the oppressed, reach out for the marginalised, voice out for the voiceless, live for peace, die for love and finally, shout for joy! We are blessed, we are blessed children of God, we are blessed family of the saints, we are blessed followers of the slain Lamb, we are blessed witnesses to God wherever we are! We are on our way to heaven, and we need to get our roadmap right. We need to be in their numbers - in that throng that is in eternal communion with the Lord. That is what we have been created for, that is for what we have been washed and made clean in the Blood, and that is what we are challenged towards in the Spirit - and that is the challenge of being saints!
Let us get this ABC of Being Saints, clear in our minds today... that we Acknowledge God, Belong to God and Commit ourselves to God's cause and we shall be counted in their numbers, in the number of All Saints!