Rev 7:2-4,9-14
1 Jn 3-1-3
Mt 5:1-12a
Ever since the Church came into existence, the Church has issued some very bold statements. Of course, these statements or teachings are made through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
One such statement is that the communion host is the Real Presence of Jesus. In other words, the communion host is indeed the real body of Christ.
On this feast of All Saints, we recall yet another bold statement that the Church has made, and in fact, is still making.
On this feast of All Saints, the Church proudly, and confidently and bravely proclaims the names of those who have gone to heaven.
In the name of God, the Church issues, with certainty, the list of the names of these people, and gives them the title of Saints.
In this official list are the familiar names like St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Jude, St. Anthony, etc.
And just recently, on the 11th October, the names of St. Damien (the leper priest) and St. Jeanne Jugan, the foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor, were added on to this official list of saints.
The Church’s official list has more than 10,000 canonized saints.
But that is just the official list. Heaven certainly has much more than that.
Because in the 1st reading, we hear of a huge number of people, impossible to count, from every nation, race, tribe and language.
Nonetheless, the Church issues this list of canonized saints to affirm one reality – the reality of heaven, and that people have gone there.
So besides these, more than 10,000 canonized saints who are in heaven, who else can be there?
Recently in the newspapers, the picture of the body of a blue whale washed ashore, reminded me ironically of a joke.
The joke goes like this : A science teacher was telling the class about sea creatures and came to the topic of whales.
A little girl stood up and said : I know something about whales. A whale swallowed the prophet Jonah and he was in its belly for 3 days.
The teacher frowned and said that it was impossible for a whale to swallow a man because of the size of its throat, and also, a man cannot possibly survive in the stomach of a whale, etc., etc.
But the little girl was adamant and said : Ok, when I go to heaven, I will ask Jonah whether it is true or not.
Then the teacher said : But what if Jonah is in hell.
The little girl said : Then, you go and ask him.
Just a joke, but I am sure that little girls will go to heaven and meet people like Jonah and the rest of that countless number whose names are not in the official list of canonized saints.
And if heaven has a big aquarium, then we might even find the whale that swallowed Jonah, swimming there somewhere.
Anyway, the meaning of the feast of All Saints is that we believe that people have gone to heaven, and they are praying and waiting for us to join them there.
Yes, we believe that they are there, and we also want to know how they got there, so that we have an example and a direction to follow.
We may tend to think that saints are people who did great and heroic acts that made people gasp in awe.
Well, some of them actually did, like the martyrs who courageously suffered horrendous torture in their witnessing for Christ.
For e.g., St. Perpetua who was heavily pregnant at the time when she was caught in the persecution of Christians.
She gave birth only a few days before her martyrdom.
The soldier who witnessed her crying out in the pains of childbirth said to her : You cry out now in so much pain. What will you do when you are suffering in the arena at the jaws of the wild animals?
Her reply was : Then another One will suffer in me, referring to Christ within her.
Such was her courage and her faith in Christ
We may think that such faith and courage belonged to a bygone era, and the skeptic in us may even think that the stories and lives of the saints have gone through some kind of embellishment, or some kind of dramatization.
If that is the case, then how about the story of the recently canonized St. Damien, the leper priest.
He is hailed a hero for going to Molokai and ministering to the leper colony there. Unfortunately he contracted the disease and died of it.
But from his own writings, he revealed the ordinary human struggles he had to endure in order to overcome his revulsion for the day-to-day life with his flock of lepers.
He wrote : The flesh of the leper gives out a repulsive and foul odor ; even the breath of the leper becomes so foul that the air around is poisoned with it.
I have great difficulty in getting used to such an atmosphere.
One day at a Sunday Mass, I found myself so stifled that I thought I must leave the altar to breathe a little of the outside air.
But I restrained myself, thinking of our Lord Jesus who reached out to the leper. These are the words of St. Damien himself.
So when we look at it deeper, we can see that saints are holy not because they love to do great and heroic deeds for God.
Rather they are holy because they do things for God with great love.
That is what today’s gospel of the Beatitudes tell us.
It is not how great or heroic the act is, but rather, how great the love is for God.
Our love for God should tell us to put our trust in God, rather than on wealth and riches.
Our love for God should tell us to hunger and thirst for what is right and good.
Our love for God should tell us that true greatness lies in forgiveness and mercy, instead of revenge and hatred.
Our love for God should tell us that life is not about good looks and appearances, but rather a good, clean and pure heart.
The world doesn’t need us to be a hero. What the world wants to see is that we are holy.
Because to be holy is to be like God.
One last story about St. Damien, the leper priest.
When St. Damien went to the leper colony at Molokai to minister to them, he met the hostile opposition of one leper who did not want to have anything to do with him.
That leper used to taunt him, saying : Go home, priest! Since your God does not cure us, what is the point of believing in Him?
Now many years later, when that leper was coming to the end of his life, he called for St. Damien.
And he said : Priest, I have been watching you. And now I want to believe.
If you were only a man, you would have run away from this island, and you would have failed long ago.
But you stayed, you have not failed, you must be more than a man. You must have a God in you.
Tell me about the God that is dwelling in you, so that I may receive him as well.
Indeed, holiness is to be like God ; holiness is to have God dwelling in us.
With God in us, we can fight the good fight, we can run the race to the finish, we can keep the faith.
And, we can become saints while still on earth.