Homily: What Saints Desire

 

Year A / Solemnity of All Saints 

Readings: Revelation 7.2-4, 9-14 / Psalm 23.1-2,3-4b. 5-6 (R/v 6) / I John 3.1-3 / Matthew 5.1-12a

Sisters and brothers, what about saints are you thinking of today? Of the communion of saints? Of your favourite saint, or a person everyone calls a living saint?

Our first reading offers us a picture of saints: they are the heavenly multitude praising God for Jesus whose sacrifice redeemed us for eternal life. This image of saints in heaven is etched in our Catholic imagination.

St Paul presents us with another image of “saints”. In his letters, he calls the early Christians “saints” because they believed in Jesus and lived Christ-like lives. We share their belief and live Christian lives. 

Do we recognise ourselves as saints? Do we want to live as saints?

“Wanting to” is the advice Thomas Merton, Cistercian monk and spiritual writer, received about becoming a saint.  

In his biography, The Seven Story Mountain, Merton writes about a conversation with his friend, Lax, while walking down Sixth Avenue in New York City. Suddenly Lax asked Thomas, “What do you want to be?” Thomas replied, “I don’t know; I guess what I want is to be a good Catholic.” “What do you mean, you want to be a good Catholic?” Lax inquired. “What you should say”— Lax told Merton — “is that you want to be a saint.” 

This is how their conversation ended in Merton’s words:

A saint! The thought struck me as a little weird. I said: “How do you expect me to become a saint?” “By wanting to,” said Lax simply.

Becoming a saint has everything to do with wanting to. It begins by wanting God unreservedly so as to live in God’s ways totally.

 

Isn’t this what Jesus is teaching his disciples in today’s gospel passage? For all to be like Him.

First, that they should want to live the promise of the Beatitudes. Being poor and meek, being merciful, and clean of heart are Christ-like ways that will lead them to God and to a place in God’s heavenly kingdom. 

And second, that they should want to take up the challenge of living out these Beatitudes. When they do, the reign of God will flourish on earth, like in heaven, for all peoples. Then, they are God’s saints on earth and in the present, like those in heaven and for all time.

Today, Jesus is inviting you and me to be brave and to have the audacity to want to become saints. 

Are we prepared to let go of all we have and are, become poor, and let God form us to be his saints? How seriously do we want this? 

The saints seriously wanted sainthood. They understood what Jesus really meant when he said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven." The saints understood the human need for God. In all things, they repeatedly threw themselves onto God’s mercy. 

What did they find when they did so? That Jesus who came to redeem us had first descended so very low in death that after this no one would be able to fall so low without falling into him (Hans Urs von Balthasar).

The saints could fall into Jesus because they lived in his ways and wanted to be his saints. What about us? Do we dare fall into Jesus in our pains and fears, fall in our failings, and fall in our sinning? 

I believe we can because whenever we fall, we will find Jesus already there for us. There to break our fall. There to catch us. There to hold and uplift us into life again. This truth may disturb some of us. It is however our exquisite refuge and our eternal relief. 

I’d like to suggest that it is when we dare to recognize our restless need for God that we will be able to let go and let ourselves fall into Jesus’ compassionate embrace. And when we do this, we will experience what the saints desired and received – God alone.

Is this our desire too?

Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore

photo: by victor alemán of john nava's "the communion of saints" tapestries in the cathedral of our lady of the angels in los angeles