REFLECTION/HOMILY ON (THE SOLEMNITY OF ALL SAINTS) 1ST NOVEMBER 2023

REFLECTION/HOMILY ON (THE SOLEMNITY OF ALL SAINTS) 1ST NOVEMBER 2023

Rev.7:2-4,9-14; Ps.24; 1Jn.3:1-3; Matt.5:1-12a

Sainthood, My Goal!

“If anyone wants to serve me, he must follow me, and where I am there also is my servant. If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him” (John 12:26).

It is a common practice for people to have role models. These models are those who have excelled in a chosen carrier in life and so constitute motivators for some others. To have someone as your model means to keep the success of the person in view so that in the future you too may achieve what the person has achieved.

As Children of God, today, we celebrate our collective role models: the Saints. They constitutes role models because they once lived in our existential conditions of life. This is what differentiates Saints from Angels. Angels never existed in bodily form on earth and so never experienced the existential conditions of live. On the other hand, Saints were once here on earth with us. Their lives had different patterns some were old, young, middle aged, rich, poor, male, female, educated, uneducated, virgins, non-virgins, sick, healthy, and so on. In all, every saint was a retired sinner. Either they retired after a sinful life or they retired in their daily struggle against sin.

Therefore, whatever be our condition in life, there is a saint who was like us. This means that our very conditions of life are routes to sainthood. We do not need to do something extraordinary to become saints; we only need to apply more devotion and love to what we do. To the question, “how can we become saints, friends of God?”, Benedict XVI answers “…to become a saint it is above all necessary to listen to Jesus and then to follow him and not lose heart in the face of difficulties”.

This celebration of the solemnity of all Saints is a humble assertion of the fact that the Church’s calendar does not exhaust the litany of saints in heaven. There are very many persons who lived well, made heaven but may have lived a silent life and so are not publicly known, yet they are known by God. In this Solemnity of All Saints, we celebrate them all. Therefore, you do not necessarily need earthly publicity to become a saint. Canonization does not say that only those canonized are saints; it rather says that the Church is certain that those canonized are saints. Again, those canonized are not more saintly or occupy a VIP session in heaven than those not canonized. They are only put forward to us for our emulation.

Saints are those who have made heaven. Therefore, this celebration reminds us of the reality of heaven and invariably the reality of hell. Heaven reminds us that this world is not our final destination. So, when we suffer humiliations and persecutions, we do not lose hope. The second reading tells us that we suffer because we are children of God; when we endure to the end, we shall become something greater.

The biographies of the saints depict men and women who, always docile to divine designs, sometimes endured indescribable sufferings, persecutions and martyrdom. They persevered in their task. “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress,” we read in the Book of Revelation, “they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (7:14).

And so, we are rather blessed when the world thinks nothing of us on account of the virtues we practice. Even when death comes especially at unexpected age and condition, today’s celebration tells us that we are not really disadvantaged. The real disadvantage is to not to be a saint. Death does not have the final, but missing heaven is final damnation.

Reflecting on the meaning of today’s solemnity, Benedict XVI has this to say: “Gazing upon the luminous example of the saints, the great desire to be like the saints is awakened in us; happy to live near to God, in the light, in the great family of the friends of God, living in his family. And this is the vocation of all of us, vigorously reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council, and on this day brought to our attention in a solemn way”.

Dear friends in Christ, the lives of the saints give us hope that holiness is possible; it assures us that there is a reward for our struggle for righteousness. Holiness demands a constant effort of God but above all it is a gift of God, who is thrice holy (cf. Isaiah 6:3). When the struggle to keep it up seems unsustainable due to lack or scarcity of good people around, let the saints be our motivation that we can get there. Never forget that it is possible to have the saints pray for us because the Church triumphant is not entirely separated from the Church militant.

The gospel reading invites us to share in the life of Blessedness. The more we imitate Christ and remain united to him, the more we enter into the mystery of divine holiness. In the Beatitudes, we enter into the passion of Christ so as to share in the resurrection – which is sainthood.

Lastly, dear friends, sainthood is not something that starts or happens after earthly life. To be a saint in heaven, we must have been saints here on earth. We need not only to be thought of as saints, we must authentically be one. Live each day of your life putting smiles on the faces of others and you too will make it. _If after everything, we no make this heaven, wetin we gain?