Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12a
He was born in 1985 and his smile was contagious from the moment he first gave one. A typical kid, with typical interests. He loved professional sports and was a diehard Yankees, Giants and Bulls fan. In elementary school he joined the basketball team and played trumpet in the school band. And it was in fourth grade, when he became an altar server, that his love for God, his love for the church, and his dedication to a life of service began to grow. When he was fifteen years old, he needed a kidney transplant. He never complained, never felt sorry for himself, and used that experience to come to a deeper appreciation for life. He was an average student, but what wasn’t average about him was his goodness, his gentleness, his faith, his love of God, and his commitment to serve God’s people. In his senior year of high school, he became a Eucharistic Minister and spent a week that summer serving the Navajo Nation in Arizona. But during his second year in college, his body began to fail him and he spent five months in various hospitals. The will of God proved stronger than the prayers of his family and friends, and God brought him home to Himself. He had discerned that God was calling him to be a priest. And perhaps we can question the wisdom of God: why would God take such an inspirational and faith-filled individual at a time when the Church needs priests? But if a priest is one who dedicates his life to God through service and sacrifice, in reality, although he never was ordained, he already was a priest. His name is Patrick Nilsen. He was my student, and today is his feast day.
She was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1925, the youngest of seven children. Her father passed away when she was five and there were days when there was little on the family dinner table, and years that they couldn’t even afford a Christmas tree, much less Christmas presents. She attended her parish elementary school and would love to sneak into the church during lunchtime to light a candle and say a prayer in front of the statues of the Sacred Heart, the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, and her patron saint, St. Therese. In her life, she never accomplished anything that the world would consider great, except to those who see greatness in being a loving and devoted wife to her husband of 51 years, a dedicated mother to her three sons, and a dear friend to all. She attended mass everyday, volunteered to feed the hungry every Thanksgiving, and was a member of a sewing group in her parish that provided clothing for the poor. She was someone who mastered her patron saint’s spiritual philosophy, known as “the little way” to sanctity, by doing the mundane things of everyday life and infusing them with tremendous love. When she was diagnosed with cancer in 1997, she lost her hair, she lost weight, and ultimately lost her life, but she never lost her faith. During her illness, she never admitted to being in the tremendous pain that wracked her body, but only spoke of it as “discomfort,” and refused pain medication that would cause her to be “out of it,” and chose instead to take only Extra-strength Tylenol so she could appreciate the time that she had left with her family. As her life was an example in Christian living, her death became an example in Christian death. And as she lay in her hospital bed a few days before she died, as she finished praying with her family, her face beamed with the most beautiful and serene smile as she announced to her family (while she stared at seemingly nothing at the foot of her bed), “He looks so beautiful.” Her name is Theresa Olsen, my mother, and today is her feast day.
Today, we celebrate the Feast of All Saints. And today is not about those who have been officially canonized. They already have their own particular feast days on the Church calendar. "All Saints" speaks of those who were not famous, but those nonetheless whose lives and deeds and love have endured beyond their death . . . my mother, your father, his brother, her husband, their child; our grandparents, our relatives, our friends . . . all those who have died and are now in the eternal embrace of God in heaven.
What is a saint? Saints are normal people, normal everyday people, who differ from most others in this world, not necessarily because of the degree of their moral perfection, but because of their faith. A saint is someone whose life is dedicated to the love of God and the doing of God's will in their lives. A saint is someone who inspires in us the desire to know and to follow Christ. And so, the feast of All Saints is an opportunity for us to offer a hymn to the ordinary people of the world who are extraordinary in their holiness, their love, their compassion, their dedication, and in their prayerfulness.
What makes a saint? Extravagance: excessive love, flagrant mercy, radical affection, exorbitant charity, immoderate faith, intemperate hope - none of which is an achievement, a badge to be earned or a trophy to be sought, but are secondary by-products of the one thing that truly makes a saint: their love for God.
Saints are those who hear the self-absorbed, success-orientated values that mainstream society has to offer and rejects them; values that shout out to us that: “Happy are those with strong personal ambition - they will get everything they ever dreamed of possessing!” And, “Happy are those who fulfill the expectations of the present age - the world is at their feet!”
We can choose to accept our society’s blessing. If we do, I’m sure we will be gifted with what the world knows and understands as blessings. But if we do accept that definition, we also reject our Lord’s voice. For in the world’s blessing there’s very little room for the poor in spirit, the mourning, the merciful, the meek, the righteous, the pure, the peacemakers or the persecuted.
Or we can reject the modern view of blessing and stand in the company of God’s saints. God’s saints are those who know their identity and security are found only in God. God’s saints are those who give only God their total devotion. God’s saints are those who morn because other members of God’s family suffer. God’s saints are those who renounce the violent ways of the world causing that suffering. God’s saints are those who actively strive to do God’s will, and in their merciful actions reflect God’s mercy, and bring God’s peace. God’s saints are those whose actions, and whose very selves, may be rejected by the world, but they rejoice because they know they do their Lord’s work and follow their Lord’s path.
Today we are invited to walk the path of the saints, the way of the Beatitudes. The way is narrow and hard. We need faith and courage to walk it. Today we look to the example of the saints and call upon their prayers to encourage us and strengthen us. We’re told that St Augustine found it hard to live the Beatitudes, but when he read the lives of the saints he said, "What these ordinary women and men have done, why not me?"
Why not us?
