Homily for Tuesday, 3 January 2023– Christmas Weekday

Readings of the day: 1 John 2:23-3:6; Psalm 98:1, 3cd-4, 5-6; John 1:29-34

Optional Memorial: The Most Holy Name of Jesus

In these days between Christmas Day and the Baptism of the Lord, which marks the end of the Christmas season, we hear a lot from the Gospel and letters of John at Mass. And there is, in these readings we hear, a pattern. Our readings from John’s Gospel and letters remind us of who God is (or who Jesus is) and who we are.

Neither who Jesus is nor who we are changes. Jesus is, has been, and will always be “the Son of God.” We are, have always been, and will always be “called children of God.” But our perception of who Jesus is and who we are is what changes. Our faith is not static. Could we not say that our faith is a constant process of growing into our realization of those central truths of who we are, “children of God,” and who Jesus is, “the Son of God,” God made flesh?

Over this Christmas season, I have been able to spend some time with my youngest nephew, August or Gus, who is almost a year old. Gus received several articles of clothing from family and loved ones over Christmas. Those of us who have had (or still have) young children or grandchildren will appreciate this: It is very difficult, I find, to know what size of clothing to buy for a baby. Many people bought Gus clothing sized for an eighteen-month-old. Now, most of those eighteen-month-old clothes are a little big for him (although he is already beginning to fit comfortably into some of them). In six months, will he have outgrown some of those outfits already?

This is a similar reality to our Christian faith, sisters and brothers. Who we are and who God is do not change. But faith is an invitation to grow into, and maybe even eventually to outgrow, how we perceive God and how we perceive ourselves before God now.

If the great John the Baptist had to put on the “baby clothes” of faith, before he was baptizing people in the Jordan—and before he baptized Jesus himself—how much truer is this of us? John admits that, not long before he baptized Jesus, he “did not know” Jesus. But, John says, “the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’” Only then is John the Baptist able to testify to Jesus “that this is the Son of God.” Only then is John the Baptist ready for the next size up in faith clothing: “That will be one camel hair onesie, please, men’s size, hand washable in a river.”

And the same is true of us, sisters and brothers. The First Letter of John says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now.” We have always been and will always be God’s children; this will never change. But the same letter goes on to say that “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Yet when God “is revealed,” 1 John says, “we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”

This is quite a bold statement: We will grow in our faith. We will outgrow our present faith clothing. In fact, our faith will grow so much that, sometime between now and when we are in heaven, when God’s presence is revealed to us fully, we will need extra-extra-large, God-sized clothing, because “we will be like” God. We, like John the Baptist, if we are not able to do so already, will be able to point to Jesus and testify that he “is the Son of God.” We will be able to point to other people in our experience who live as Jesus Christ did, who are the saints living among us, and say, “this is a daughter, this is a son of God, beloved of God.”

It looks as though we will need to start looking for the next-size-up outfit!

Homily for Sunday, 2 July 2017

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a; Psalm 89:2-3, 16-17, 18-19; Romans 6:3-4, 8-11; Matthew 10:37-42

When was the last time you have ever been rewarded for something? Within these last few weeks, another school year has come to an end. Our high school seniors have graduated. In our parish, beautiful “moving up” celebrations have been held for our St. Kateri School fifth graders who will be moving to sixth grade in other schools, as well as for pre-kindergarten students preparing to enter kindergarten in the fall and kindergarten students who will be first graders after a well-earned and, we pray, enjoyable, safe, and peaceful summer break.

If you work, have you ever been recognized for excellence at your job? Have you ever been rewarded for above-and-beyond community service? Has our Church ever recognized you for your service? Parents, have you ever been proud of your children for something they have accomplished, and told them so? Children, are you able to think of a time when you were thankful to your parents, brothers or sisters, other family, or friends for something kind they did for you?

Our readings we have heard today speak to us of being recognized or receiving a reward for something we have done well. In the Second Book of Kings we hear of a woman who lived in a town in Israel called Shunem in the time of the prophet Elisha. 2 Kings describes the woman of Shunem as “a woman of influence,” which could mean that she was wealthy or had otherwise been recognized and rewarded often for who she was or how she acted. We know that she had been a close friend to Elisha. Each time Elisha passed through Shunem, “he [would] stop there to dine” at the Shunammite woman’s home. “Since he visits us often,” the Shunammite woman says “to her husband” in today’s reading, “let us arrange a little room on the roof and furnish it for [Elisha] with a bed, table, chair, and lamp, so that when he comes to us he can stay there.”

The hospitality of the woman of Shunem toward Elisha reminds me of the hospitality of many of my brother Basilians and of my parents and family. A few days ago I was speaking with Mom and Dad. My father, who clearly is looking forward to having me closer to home in Edmonton starting later this week (I am looking forward to being nearer to family, too, although I will once again miss many of us, my friends of St. Kateri), asked me something like: “So, you’ll be able to spend some time at our place, right”? For me, of course, this goes without saying: I will definitely spend a fair amount of time with Mom and Dad. Besides, it would be impossible to pass up their cooking and good conversation around the dinner table! And so the spontaneity of Dad’s question (out of love) and the hospitality behind it, which I have known to extend beyond our immediate family, caught me just slightly, and delightfully, off guard. The Shunammite woman’s hospitality also brings to my mind the people I have met everywhere I have been around the world who say to me, “Let me know if you or your family is visiting here. We have a place you and they can stay.” And, having visited Israel and the Palestinian Territories, the culture behind the Shunammite woman’s spontaneous hospitality resonates with me in this way, too. Yet kindness and hospitality like that of the Shunammite woman know no borders!

The best part, whether speaking of my mom and dad, of people who have invited me, my family, and my brother Basilians into their homes around the world, or the woman of Shunem in 2 Kings, is that none of these people expect any reward for their hospitality. In fact, in the short section that is left out from the middle of our first reading today, the woman of Shunem refuses the reward offered her by Elisha and his servant, Gehazi. And yet, self-sufficient as the Shunammite woman is, she longs for one thing: A child. Without her asking anything from Elisha or Gehazi, Elisha prophesies that, within a year, she will give birth to a son. And, if we read just beyond the end of today’s reading, we know that Elisha’s prophecy comes true for the Shunammite woman.

As with the woman of Shunem, in Matthew’s Gospel from which we hear today, Jesus promises his disciples; promises us a great reward for our hospitality, whether we expect it or not. Jesus says that “whoever receives a prophet… a righteous” person, or a disciple; “one of [Jesus’] little ones,” simply because they are who they are, prophets and disciples of Jesus, “will surely not lose his [or her] reward.” My sisters and brothers, the reward Jesus promises us for our hospitality is eternal life. This is so great a reward that it is beyond us to know what to expect of it. We know what eternal life is; what heaven is, but we have only a small hint of what the “reward” Jesus offers us is and what we hope for, if we have known the kindness; the spontaneous hospitality of one another, the Church. Our Lord invites us, then, to be that hint of heaven to one another.

Even so, only to a point is it possible to think and speak of a reward so great as heaven as something that can be merited or deserved, much less expected; something for which we might somehow be made worthy. But does our Church not still struggle with this language of merit or worthiness of eternal life, even in our prayer? In our Prayer over the Gifts, which we will pray in a few moments as bread and wine are brought to the altar, we will hear: “O God… Grant, we pray, that the deeds by which we serve you may be worthy of these sacred gifts.” And yet, in our opening prayer of this Mass, we have recognized that God’s gifts of our Church; of our ability to worship together; of God’s gift of eternal life to which this celebration points us, are beyond our wildest imagination. We have prayed this prayer to our “God, who by the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light.”

We did not choose God first. God chose us first to be his daughters and sons as if “by adoption”; “to be children of light”; to be God’s Church. God has chosen us to be baptized into God’s Church, as St. Paul says to the Romans; to be baptized into a share in the death and resurrection of Christ by which heaven is opened to us. God, in supreme kindness and hospitality, has chosen to promise us eternal life, insofar as we offer one another in some way a hint of God’s own kindness and hospitality. Definitely, God’s gift of eternal life is the one gift I am able to think of that is greater than Mom’s or Dad’s cooking or any gift; any hospitality; any reward any human being besides Jesus is able to offer.

We are caught in a beautiful, necessary tension, then: We can never offer or be worthy of a gift or reward to match God’s offer to us of eternal life, yet God invites us to be but a small hint of this gift; of this reward of eternal life we can only begin to imagine. If we place any priority before God; before Jesus Christ and eternal life, Jesus says, we are “not worthy of him.” Even worldly priorities that are in themselves good, like “father or mother… son or daughter”; dinner with Mom and Dad; on this long weekend of celebration of Canada Day today [yesterday] and, here, Independence Day on Tuesday, our countries and the friendship and peace between them, must be of lesser importance to us than the only goal that ultimately matters: Heaven; eternal life.

Jesus, I believe, is inviting us here to accept heaven as God’s free gift to us. Jesus is inviting us to place no earthly priority; no earthly reward before God’s free gift to us of heaven. Jesus is inviting us to trust that, if we offer one another even a small hint; a small sign of heaven by the way we act toward one another with love; kindness; hospitality, we “will surely not lose [our] reward.” We will gain heaven, even if we cannot possibly grasp fully this side of heaven the eternal reward that awaits us.

Homily for Friday, 5 June 2015‒ Memorial of St. Boniface

Friday of the 9th Week in Ordinary Time

St. Kateri School Mass

Readings of the day (alternate readings for Mass with children): 1 John 3:1, 23; Psalm 34; John 15:12-15

Is anybody here a bit sad that this is the last St. Kateri School Mass of the year? I am, just a bit, because I love being with you, our St. Kateri children; parents; teachers; staff… I’ll miss you when you’re not at school every day; when I’m not at the front door of our school to greet you almost every day!

But then how many of you love summer? What are some of the things you love most about summer?

Our readings today speak to us about love. What is love? First, who loves us so much that he calls us his own children? God loves us so much “that he lets us be called his children, as we truly are.” This is what we hear in our first reading today, from the first letter of John. Isn’t it pretty amazing that God loves us as our parents love you, their children, only more?

God could just sit up in heaven, all-powerful, and say, “I made the earth; the universe; all things and living beings in it. There you go; you’re on your own”! But God doesn’t do this. Why? God wants to be part of our lives; to be the very center of our lives because God loves us. And what did God do for us; whom did God send us to show God’s love for us? God has sent us his own Son, Jesus Christ, who lived among us and gave his life for us on a Cross and then rose again so that we could always be with the God who loves us, now and in heaven.

But there is one thing that God, who loves us more than we can even imagine, asks of us. What does God ask of us? God asks that we love one another, not only when we want to, or when the people we are asked to love are nice to us, but all the time. “God wants us to have faith in his Son Jesus Christ”; to believe that Jesus is God (and also human, like us) and loves us, “and to love one another. This is also what Jesus taught us to do,” we hear today from the first letter of John.

Is it easy to love each other? Is it easy to love, especially when others are unkind to us or irritate us? Love is often not easy. And Jesus doesn’t pretend that it is when he asks us to love one another as he loves us, as “friends,” in today’s Gospel reading.

Does anybody here remember what Jesus says in our Gospel reading is “the greatest way to show love for friends”? Jesus says, “the greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them.” This is not only difficult, but isn’t the thought of dying for somebody, even somebody good, a bit scary? This is scary to me! We know that Jesus died for us but, well, he’s God. Are we supposed to show our love exactly as Jesus says, by dying for one another? Well, yes and no.

I don’t think that Jesus means that, if we don’t literally give up our life for another person, we don’t love enough. But we can give up ourselves, our selfishness, in many little ways and so show that we love one another. We can be kind and patient with each other even when we don’t feel like it, when we’re tired, or have had a bad day. We can smile. One of the beautiful ways we show we love and care for one another we do every day here at St. Kateri. What is this way in which we show love for one another as friends? I think it’s when we hold the door open for the next person who is entering our school after us. Even if we want to run ahead, Sr. Kay sometimes reminds us, out of love and care for each other we look back to see if anybody is entering the school after us. And we hold the door for her or him. Imagine this as our practice for heaven. Only, when we get to heaven, we don’t know who will be following after us. Still, look back and hold the door open. As small an action as this is, it shows love. It is “giving up” of ourselves for another person, as Jesus asks us. And more people will get into heaven the more we love; the more we hold doors open.

I have one more story. It’s about St. Boniface, whose special day the Church celebrates today. St. Boniface lived hundreds of years ago in what is now Germany. Boniface showed love for the people among whom he lived, usually in small ways. Boniface was made a bishop of an area on the edge of what was then the Roman Empire; an area with very few people who believed in Jesus. So Boniface tried to convince the people there to believe that Jesus is God. There was a tree in his town that the people believed was protected by their god, Thor (the big strong god with the hammer!). If Boniface cut down the tree and built a church out of its wood and Thor didn’t kill him, the people said, they would believe Boniface that Jesus is God. So Boniface cut down the tree and built a church from its wood. Boniface survived, so the people believed him: Jesus is really God! And the people believed Boniface even more because he showed them the love of Jesus; of God by his patience; his service to them until he died to protect their town.

“Now I tell you to love one another,” Jesus says. This is Jesus’ example. This was the example of St. Boniface. This, children of God (“as we truly are,” says the first letter of John), is our example: If only in little ways; if only in holding doors open, love one another as God; as Jesus loves us.

Homily for Sunday, 26 April 2015– Fourth Sunday of Easter

World Day of Vocations

Readings of the day: Acts 4:8-12; Psalm 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28, 29; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18

During this homily, the children of St. Kateri Parish were invited forward. I gave part of this homily seated in front of the sanctuary of our parish's St. Cecilia Church, with our parish's children gathered around. The children of St. Kateri School, our parish's school for students from Pre-K 3 to Grade 6, served in various ministries at the Mass during which this homily was given.

Who here has ever seen a shepherd? This is one of the difficulties we have because we live in a city. I imagine that not many of us have seen a shepherd. All the children here: Does anybody here want to be a shepherd when you grow up? Well, it doesn’t pay very well, but you get to spend lots of time outside every day. This is fine, as long as it isn’t cold or rainy. Being a shepherd isn’t a nine-to-five job. Do we remember other stories in the Bible about shepherds, like when the shepherds who found out about Jesus’ birth went to the stable in Bethlehem at night? And shepherds end up smelling like the sheep after a while. Sheep, if any of us have ever been near them, are a bit stinky to say the least! But being a shepherd is good and worthwhile because, if you heard in our Gospel reading just now, who calls himself “the Good Shepherd”?

Jesus, our God and Lord, is the Good Shepherd! And what makes Jesus not just any shepherd but the Good Shepherd? Jesus isn’t a shepherd for the money, like the “hired man” in our Gospel reading. Jesus isn’t a shepherd because he likes to spend a lot of time outside, although he was outside all the time, traveling from place to place on foot. But Jesus is the Good Shepherd because his shepherding; his service; his speaking; his teaching; his healing the sick; his looking for the lost; the sinners is always about others. It is never about him. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus is so selfless that he is prepared to “lay down [his] life” for others; for his friends; for his enemies; for us. He does “lay down [his] life” for us. Jesus died on the cross for us, to save us; to give us a chance at heaven!

Now, I don’t know about this shepherding business. I suppose I have my moments when I think of others and serve others before myself. But I am not sure I would be prepared to die for anybody; to lay down my life for anybody. What about us? Would we be able to lay down our lives for the people who are unkind to us, even repeatedly? What about people who annoy us? What about the bully at school or at work (hopefully none of us bully each other)? I might be able to lay down my life for my best friend, or for somebody I really like (like all of us here)… But, even then, I am not sure. And besides, there aren’t many chances to gain work experience as a shepherd around here. We are in a city after all. When was the last time any of us saw a real-life shepherd?

And yet in Jesus’ time, when he said “I am the Good Shepherd” and “I lay down my life” for my sheep, the people who heard Jesus would have known exactly what he meant. How is this?

In Jesus’ time, sheep pens, to keep the sheep from going too far, were quite simple. The sheep would be surrounded by a barrier of stones, maybe a foot high, in the shape of a rectangle. On one side of the rectangle, there would be an opening in the pile of stones. At night, to protect the sheep from being attacked by wild animals like wolves, the shepherd would lie down across the opening in the pile of stones. So it would have made perfect sense to the people hearing Jesus when he would say, “I am the Good Shepherd… I lay down my life.” If a wolf were to attack the sheep, it would need to attack the shepherd first. The shepherd, if he cared for his sheep, would literally lie or sit down across the opening to the sheep pen to protect the sheep with his own life. “I lay down my life” for my sheep, Jesus says. And so the people who heard Jesus would have known exactly what he meant.

[Sit on the step of the sanctuary.] To give us a better idea of what Jesus meant by saying, “I am the Good Shepherd… I lay down my life” (although there are no sheep here in the church, no piles of rocks, and hopefully no wolves), I am here, sitting on your level. But look around for a moment… What do you notice? Am I above you? No, I am on your level, but you are also on my level. To be like the “Good Shepherd”; to be like Jesus Christ in the way we love and care for each other, is not just the responsibility of us priests. We are all called to be like Christ the Good Shepherd to one another; to think of the well-being of others even before our own; to be kind to one another; not to do things that hurt one another on purpose.

We are the Good Shepherd in our world, to one another. Put another way, we are Christ to one another, each and every one of us. About five hundred years ago, a Carmelite nun in Spain, St. Teresa of Ávila, spoke about each of us as the hands and feet of Christ; the presence of Christ in our world:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

with compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

We are, here and now, the body; the eyes and ears; the hands and feet of Christ in our world; the hands and feet of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for us because he loves us and cares for us. Here and now, we are sitting on one another’s level. Here and now, we are, in the words of our second reading from the First Letter of John, “the children of God.” We are God’s presence; Jesus to each other.

How can we be Jesus, the Good Shepherd, “children of God” to each other? How can we be the body; the eyes and ears; the hands and feet of Christ to one another? We do not need to work a great miracle as Peter does in our first reading, from Acts, healing the crippled person. But we can speak kind words to others. We can try to get along with one another, especially people who think differently than we do; with whom we disagree or people who annoy us. We can give to the poor or spend time with somebody who is sick or sad, to console this person. We can spend time together as families; eat a meal together and pray together every day.

There are many ways that I haven’t mentioned in which we can be Christ to each other. We can keep the wolves out of the sheep pen by lying across its entrance (figuratively) like the Good Shepherd, Jesus. What are the wolves who attack the sheep? Meanness and bullying; gossip; saying things that are not true to hurt another person… How do we stop these “wolves” from attacking? We look out for one another. We show at least one person every day that we care for this person by doing something on purpose that is kind and loving toward her or him. We work to build a parish; a school; communities; a city; a country; a world where nobody is in need of basic necessities to survive and thrive.

This is how we all become like the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who lays down his life for us; who lies across the entrance to the sheep pen to protect his sheep. This is how we place ourselves on the same level as one another; lead each other by care and kindness. This is how we are “children of God”; the body; the eyes and ears; the hands and feet of Christ to one another.

Homily for Friday, 6 February 2015– St. Kateri School Mass, Memorial of St. Paul Miki and Companions

Friday of the 4th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 John 2:29b-3:1a; Psalm 119:129-130, 133, 135; Mark 9:33-37. (Readings for Masses with Children).

This homily included props: A signed painting I received as a gift from Basilian novices on my most recent visit to Colombia, a satchel-type bag with aboriginal design from an earlier visit to Colombia, and clip art pictures of a beach and sun, a mosquito, and the devil.

Greetings, children of God, students, teachers, staff, and parents of St. Kateri School! It has been just under a month since I went away to help the Basilians, the order of priests I belong to, in Colombia. Does anybody here know, more or less, where Colombia is? How about a little show and tell?

You see, I have this little bag, made by the descendants of the first people who lived in Colombia. My bag is filled with memories and things I like about Colombia: This painting of two Aboriginal people (the first people to live in Colombia), carrying a bag just like the one I have. These bags are designed by these “first people” of Colombia. This is a neat design, and a beautiful painting, isn’t it?

…This is a gift from the members of our order there, whom I love so much. I have the beach and the sun… Well, I carried up these pictures of the beach and the sun. The real beach and sun were too big to fit into my suitcase.

But, as much as I love Colombia (this was my fourth time there to serve with my order), I love being back here to celebrate Mass with all of us, children of God. How do we know, though, that we are children of God? Our first reading today, from the first letter of John, says so. We hear this from 1 John: “You know that everyone who does right is a child of God.”

Now, do we not all at least try to “do right”? I think so. Teachers and parents, would you not agree with me? And so 1 John says it: We are children of God. It gives me great joy as a priest to be able to go all over the world to celebrate Jesus, God made human, present during our Eucharist, our Mass; to celebrate with children of God from Colombia to right here at St. Kateri School and Parish!

And yet there are a just a few things I don’t like about Colombia, like mosquitoes. Who likes mosquitoes? ...Wait, how did a mosquito get into my bag? Good thing this is just a picture of a mosquito! And there is something even worse than mosquitoes; something I really dislike, whether it’s in Colombia or here. What is it? Well, I really dislike sin. All of us as children of God are called to dislike sin and try, with God’s help, not to sin. What is sin? It’s something that we know is wrong but we do it anyway. Now at least we all try our best as children of God not to sin, right? But there’s a problem… Yeah, him; Satan, the devil! [I pull a picture of the devil out of my bag.]

…Wait: How did you get in here, Satan? How did you get through airport security? How did you get into my soul [cringe]? I didn’t declare a devil when I went through customs. Get out of here, Satan! Jesus is here with these children, their parents, and their teachers and school staff, and we’re celebrating Mass!

Besides better airport security, how can we avoid letting the devil squeak into our lives and make trouble? How can we avoid sin and “do right” instead? Our readings give us a couple of ways. First, we can pray. We pray to God in our Psalm, “Keep your promise and don’t let me stumble, or let sin control my life… Lord, let your face shine upon me.” Isn’t this a beautiful prayer? Do you think we could all make this our prayer, every day? I know I’m going to try to pray something this every day, and then the devil won’t try to sneak into my luggage again!

An even better way to avoid sin and the devil is found in our Gospel reading today. The Gospel of Mark says that, while the disciples were “arguing about which one of them was the greatest,” Jesus welcomed “a child to stand near him.” Shouldn’t we all try to welcome one another as Jesus welcomes this child: To help each other with homework; to play nicely on the playground and at home; not to bully; to respect our teachers and parents? This is how we, like Jesus, welcome one another as children of God. And so I say again: Greetings, St. Kateri students; parents; teachers; staff! Welcome, people of prayer; people who, with God’s help, “do right.” Welcome and blessings, children of God!

Homily for Saturday, 1 November 2014– Solemnity of All Saints

Readings of the day: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14; Psalm 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12a

Who are saints? Has anyone here ever thought that there may be many more saints‒ people who have entered heaven‒ than our Church has officially named, or canonized?

Here are some figures on saints: From the year 1000 to 1978, when John Paul II became pope, “fewer than 450” saints were canonized. St. John Paul II, ordained a priest on the Solemnity of All Saints 68 years ago today, alone canonized over 480 saints and beatified 1 300 more people in his 28 years as pope. There are more than double the canonized and beatified people (those declared “blessed,” with one more attributed miracle needed to be canonized a saint) now than before John Paul II became pope. And those are just the named saints. They are more than the number of days in the year on which we Catholics celebrate saints.

Fortunately we have this Solemnity of All Saints on which we celebrate literally all saints, those named and unnamed. This, I think, is our Church’s way of saying that there are many more saints than those we formally recognize and canonize.

This is not some strange idea. Our readings for today resonate with this sense that there are many saints, officially recognized or not. Some saints (for the first few centuries of Christian history these were all the saints recognized) are martyrs; those who have given their lives for our faith. Our first reading, from Revelation, speaks of these saints, courageous witnesses to Christ whose “robes” have been “washed in the blood of the Lamb.” Our second reading includes all people who have lived with the purity of “children of God,” and in our Gospel reading Jesus calls many people “blessed”: “The poor in spirit… those who mourn… the meek… those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… the merciful… the clean of heart… the peacemakers” and those “who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.”

Our Responsorial Psalm is especially inspiring to me because it speaks of all who long for God. We have all prayed here, “Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.” Is this not the first step toward being a saint: To long for the face of God; to desire to be with God for eternity? Do we not all have this desire in some way?

Please allow me to say with confidence that I do not think we would be here if we did not desire to be with God. We all desire to be with God, now and forever. Am I right? We are all called to be saints; called to be among the holy people of God.

There are many saints-to-be here now who live this universal call to be saints, to be children of God who “long to see God’s face,” better than I could ever preach it in words. Our Church and our world have many anonymous saints; I believe more than the saints whose names we know. This, more than just the saints canonized by our Church, is our cause for celebration. This is why we are here on this day to remember All Saints.