All Saints Day November 1, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
Epic. Or maybe you’d say “sigma.” Most people see the saints as amazing, “up there,” as heroes and legends and special people who do what we never could. And you know what? Some of them really are.
Padre Pio could bilocate, read souls, and had the wounds of Christ in his body for 50 years. Joan of Arc led the French armies to victory in battle and bravely faced being burned alive by corrupt men. Francis of Assisi lived radical poverty and reconverted most of Europe to the faith. There’s story after story of incredible saints doing incredible things. But being a saint isn’t all epic, world-changing stuff.
Yes, Mother Teresa served the poorest of the poor for 50 years with amazing love and endurance. But, she spent the first 20 years of her life as a nun just teaching at a school. Without those 20 years of hidden prayer and service first, we wouldn’t have the Missionaries of Charity now. Maximilian Kolbe boldly traded his life for a stranger’s in a concentration camp. When they tried to starve him to death, he sang hymns of praise until they finally decided to poison him. But before his epic, heroic, and joyful sacrifice in a concentration camp, he just served as a priest. He prayed, preached, and dealt with daily life as best he could. Ever seen a picture of his desk? It was an absolute disaster.
Everyone has probably heard of St. Therese of Lisieux. But why? She died at 24 of tuberculosis in a small convent. She wrote exactly one book – her diary – and it wasn’t even all that well done. Why is she so beloved? Because she bore witness to the power of living daily life in love with God, regardless of how epic – or not – your life is. She really learned it from her parents Louis and Zelie, who are also saints! What did they do? They ran a business, they got married, they had kids, they died. That’s it. No epic death story, no world-changing book. Just made money and raised a family. Zelie made lace and Louis was a watchmaker, but Zelie’s business was so good that Louis stopped his in order to be her bookkeeper. When she died, he resumed his work and raised his daughters with love and faith.
Ever heard of St. Mark Ji Tianxiang? He was a doctor in China and a Catholic. Unfortunately, he was also addicted to Opium. He confessed it every week, but never broke free. Eventually, the priest told him not to come back until he broke his addiction. The priest was wrong to do that, but Mark couldn’t do anything about it. He never managed to break his addiction.. So, he went 30 years without confession or communion, but he never stopped going to Mass and practicing his faith. During the Boxer Rebellion, he was captured and told to renounce his faith or die. He chose death. Now he is a saint and a martyr, despite being a drug addict his whole life.
Becoming a saint isn’t always an epic story of constant success and amazing events. In fact, it’s almost never that. The vast majority of the saints are people whose names we don’t know, whose lives don’t stand out, whose glory we’ll only discover in the next life. That’s what we’re celebrating today: All the saints. Everyone in heaven is a saint. And the point of today isn’t to make them feel good about themselves. The saints in heaven gain nothing from our praise and celebration.
So why do it? Two reasons: to glorify God and to sanctify ourselves. Again, God doesn’t need us to glorify him. He gets nothing from it. But we owe him praise and thanksgiving. When someone gives you something good, you owe them gratitude. It is a matter of justice. God has given us everything. Today, we focus especially on the fact that he has given us heroes and examples in the saints. Every saint is a gift from God, a friend, a model, and someone who now prays for us to succeed in our struggle in this fallen world. So, we thank God.
It also makes us holier. We honor them to inspire ourselves, to remind ourselves that we too are destined to be saints one day. That’s what it means to go to heaven. So, we need the Padre Pios and Mother Teresas, but we also need the Mark Tianxiangs and Louis Martins and all the unknown ones.
Some of you are called to be priests, some to be monks or friars, some to be sisters or nuns. Some of you are called to be missionaries. Some of you might even die as martyrs! But all of you are called to be saints! To be holy engineers, saintly farmers, pious business owners, and loving parents. Whether you’re already a holy roller going to daily Mass and praying lots of rosaries or addicted to something or depressed or struggling to even care about life right now, you can be a saint!
How? First, you have to believe it’s possible. There are a lot of other stories I couldn’t share, that I don’t know. Read about the saints, both the epic ones to be inspired and the supposedly “unimportant” ones to remember it’s possible. Read “Saints Behaving Badly.” Read scripture and see how God somehow managed to make saints out of some really awful, incompetent people. Believe me when I say you can be a saint. Otherwise, why did Jesus die on the cross?
Then, you have to want it! Saints are not all sour-faced curmudgeons. Some of them definitely are, which should give hope to you curmudgeons out there! But saints are primarily joyful, happy people. Yes, they suffer a lot and “miss out” on some of the things the world considers fun, but they have a much more meaningful and significant kind of joy and happiness even in their trials. Do you want to be happy? Do you? Then you want to be holy! Stop asking for things you think will make you happy and start asking for happiness itself! Start asking God for holiness! It is the most guaranteed prayer.
Lastly, don’t give up. You are going to fail. A lot. Holiness does not always look like we think it does. When you fail, try again. When you fail repeatedly, keep trying. And all along the way, be willing to learn. To learn more about yourself, about our faith, about how other people overcame your particular struggle. Then keep going.
I plan on going to heaven. I say that not because I’m confident in my ability to succeed, but because I know what God can do. Because I have failed in some pretty awful ways, yet his grace was always there when I came back to him and often even when I didn’t. I plan on going to heaven and I hope to take as many of you with me as I can.