Homily for the Week of November 2, 2008

ALL SAINTS AND ALL SOULS DAY, 2008
Jn 3:1-3 · Mt 5:1-12a

About every 7 years we have two major Catholic celebrations coming on a weekend such as this weekend. They are All Saints Day and All Souls Day. These feast, coming as they do in late autumn, give us an opportunity to ponder and appreciate the God who saves every leaf that falls and in a short time will know every snowflake that falls. We reflect on the God who assures us that we are never dead, even though winter is on its way and we all shall die. Today’s Church service reminds us that just as the farmer prepares for winter, just as the apples are picked from the trees, and just as the football season comes to an end, we, too, are being gathered as the harvest of heaven.

This weekend we honor all the saints, both those with an ST in front of their name, as well as all who have entered heaven after their death. In a sense theses are our heroes, the ones whose life we remember and whom we often places pictures of them in various places of our home or life. And then we pray for all of our relatives and friends who have died. This year 7 of them had their funeral Mass right here in St. James Church. I have mentioned their names in our bulletin.

Both All Saints Day and All Souls Day invite us to think about our own lives while we are here on earth and what where we will go after we die. For some of us us that day may not be that far off; for most of you that day may be years and years from now. Although a daily reading of the local newspaper alerts us to the fact that many people die young, especially as the result of auto accidents or sometimes a serious sickness.

A fundamental belief of the Catholic faith is life after death. We pray in the Apostles Creed: I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. On the cross, Jesus promised the Good Thief that he would be in Paradise before the end of the day. St. Francis welcomed death as Sister Death because she would welcome him into life everlasting.

We also believe that those who have died are still in union with us. Again, in our creeds we speak of the communion of saints. St. Dominic said to his brothers as he was dying: Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall help you then more effectively than during my life. St. Therese of Lisieux said: I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth.
Throughout the year we celebrate the feast days of various well-known saints. but today we celebrate the thousands of men, woman and children who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. These are our ancestors, our relatives and friends who shared life here on earth with us and can now pray for us and for our eternal salvation. They are also an inspiration to us for as they lived the faith faithfully to the end, so can we with the help of their prayers and the grace of God.

In our Catholic faith life after death means either heaven, purgatory or hell. What will heaven be like? Most of us, young and old, have our answers. An eight-year-old boy answers that in heaven he can play with his toys all day, his parents won't limit his time on the computer, and his dog, that had recently died, would be there. A six-year-old girl said that she will get to play with her guardian angel, and her guardian will teach her how to fly. A 72-year-old widow said she looked forward to heaven in order to see her husband again. A 43-year-old man said he would finally get all of his questions answered.

All of us tend to project into heaven those things that we believe will make us happy. Heaven is supposed to be a happy place. Some do answer that they look forward to meeting God, but then they too quickly paint a picture of heaven in terms of what we know now, in terms of the people we love and the things we enjoy doing.

Some of us will answer the question by stating what we hope heaven will not be or who we hope will not be there. In anger, some will say that they pray such and such a particular person will not be in heaven. Heaven will not be what we imagine. It will be what God has made it to be.
The Bible does not give us much description of heaven other thn it is a place of everlasting peace and joy. It is a place where all persons are focused on God. It is an answer placed in each of us that there must be something after we die. For Catholics, Jesus is our hope. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus we can find an explanation. If Jesus died but lives forever, than we too who remain close to Jesus will share his life, death and resurrection.

Think of a moment when you were with a group of good friends and you had just done something really great and exciting . Everyone is content and joyful and excited. That experience is a little bit like what heaven will be like, except in heaven it won’t be just a moment . It will last forever.
Even though we generally refer to heaven as being up and hell as being down, they are not physical places as we experince time and space. Thus we can only describe them through examples. For instance, when speaking of heaven , Jesus used the example of mansion or big house. The book of Revelation talks of heaven where there will be no tears nor death, there will be no pain.

The second reading from 1 John tells us of a great privilege: ''We may be called children of God.'' For the Mediterranean Middle Eastern person, this was the best thing that could happen to a person, to be the family member of a family that had great honor. A person's family, for better or worse, gave a person his or her identity. There was no such concept of ''self-identity.'' For the widow and orphan, the leper and cripple, and others such as these, they either had no family or had been put out of their family. For a lesser family or the family of the person, there was no possibility for upward mobility.

John tells us that these outcasts are now part of a new family. They are part of the family of God. They have moved from the streets to the throne room of God! This is the right of children. Further, children are allowed an inheritance. Even more, children of a king would become great rulers or people of influence in their own right.

The struggle to be a saint is not really a struggle of becoming a perfect person. It is the struggle of becoming a person who loves God beyond all other things. It is the struggle of letting God make heaven instead of us inventing heaven. It is the struggle of trusting God and letting Him give us more than we can imagine. Accepting heaven as it is, rather than what we want it to be, is a sign of trust.

Once a father and mother have given life to a new human being, they choose a name for their new born child. For centuries, people have given their child a saint’s name in hope that their child will grow up like its namesake. To have a heavenly godmother or godfather is to be part of the tradition of the Catholic Church. These saints’ names begin with Adrian, Agnes and Albert and conclude with Zachary and Zoe. Many of these names are Bible names such as Aaron, Abel, Abigail and end with Zacchaeus, Zebedee and Zechariah. For those of you who do not have a patron saint whose name you have, it is never too late to choose one. She or he could be a popular saint like St. Therese of Lisieux or Franz Jagerstatter, the Austrian conscientious objector who chose death rather then to serve in Hitler's army during World War II. Our patron saint could also be deceased parent, brother or sister, relative, friend, parishioner, teacher, classmate, co-worker who loved, inspired and helped us by his or her example and who is certain to be among that great number of those whom we call All saints.