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Sts. Joseph & Paul Catholic Church |
Homily Archives | |
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All Saints
If you follow pop culture, or watch any kind of news, you are aware that the rich and the famous are doing some quite noble acts to help the poor. The actress, Angelina Jolie, devotes her time working to bring humanitarian relief to those who are in desperate need in Africa. The singer, Bono, has teamed up with Oprah Winfrey and the clothing store Gap, working on what is called the Red Campaign, in which a percentage of earnings from the red clothing purchased at Gap will go to provide medical and food relief to needy areas of our world. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, has established an 18 billion dollar foundation to help relieve the suffering brought on by the diseases of AIDS and tuberculosis. And, two former presidents, George H. Bush and Bill Clinton, are working side by side, raising millions of dollars to provide funding for earthquake and tsunami relief in Asia, and hurricane relief here in the United States. These powerful people
are doing some extraordinary things to bring relief to the great
humanitarian needs of our day. These actions are admirable and even
inspirational. While we may feel good in the wake of admiration and
inspiration, we may also think that we can never achieve what another
has done. We may say, “We don’t have their means, or their abilities,
to bring about such extraordinary changes.” If these are our
thoughts, then in the end we may do nothing to help the situations of
our neighbors in need. If these are our thoughts, then in the end, we
jeopardize the power of God, which is within each of us, calling us to
be saints, turning the ordinary into extraordinary. Each of us has the
power and the potential to bring about change in our world.
The first letter from John reminds us that we should not consider the “saints” only those few extraordinary people who seem to have much greater means and abilities then we do. John reminds us that we are all God’s saints when he says, “Beloved, we are all God’s children now.” We have become children of God through the gift of our baptism. When we were immersed in the waters of baptism, we were buried with Christ; we died with him and to our former way of life. When we were brought up out of those waters, we rose with him to a new way of life. This Feast of All Saints is a celebration of how God has already graced us with the gift of divine life. It is our feast day and shows us that we are already extraordinary in God’s eyes because we are God’s children. We may not be rich and powerful as the world sees it, but we are rich and powerful in God’s world. May we take the gift of divine life that we have received from God, go out into the world and, with our own means, show that we are saints, thus gifting others with the same.
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