Homily: All Saints – Cycle A
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Although it may seem like a harmless question
at first, this is actually a great question to ask kids as it often opens up a
chance to see into their hearts. For
some reason, somewhere around the beginning of high school, we stop asking kids
what they want to be and start asking
them what they want to do. As adults, we often stick with that language:
resigning ourselves to a life of doing
something instead of being something.
This is why asking kids this question is so great: because
a kid is going to tell you the deepest longings of his or her heart. “I want to be a doctor” or “a fireman”, or “a
teacher” or “a nurse” or “a race car driver” or even “a mom” or “a dad”. And what are these kids all saying when they
reply with one of these “careers”?
They’re saying “I want to be great.”
Each kid, when he or she looks at one of these careers, thinks to him or
herself “That person is great, and I want to be that person.” Obviously, this isn’t a conscious thought,
because kids don’t think like that; and so perhaps it would be better to say that
it is a “movement of the heart” that each kid experiences that speaks to an
innate desire for greatness.
Why is this innate desire within us? Well, because in God we are destined for
glory. In the second reading from the
first letter of Saint John we read: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what
we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall
see him as he is.” What else can he mean
when he says “we shall be like him” except “we shall be like him in his glory”? As children of God, we are destined to be
like him, who is all-glorious; thus, we are destined for glory: that is, to be
great beyond all imagination. This, my
friends, is what it means to be a saint.
Unfortunately, however, we seem to have lost the connection
between achieving saintliness and human excellence. In other words, we’ve decided that
“greatness” and “saintliness” are different ambitions; and that if you want to
achieve one you have to give up your hopes for the other. But I’m here to tell you, my friends, that
there is no greater greatness that you can achieve that is any greater than
becoming a saint!
It’s true that many saints were despised in their own times
and seemed to eschew greatness while on earth—Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Anthony
of the Desert, or any of the Martyrs—but that was because in their times the
idea of greatness was a distorted one: these saints were great because they
refused the lure of a “this-world-only greatness” in favor of the heroic
greatness of persevering in virtue in spite of resistance. Still other saints, of course, achieved great
things in this world—Saint Louis IX of France, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary… a
king and a queen! …or perhaps a more modern example, Saint Teresa of
Calcutta—yet their worldly recognition was only a reflection of the
appreciation that the world gave to them for persevering in heroic virtue
throughout their lives. Therefore, we
can see that true greatness—heroic greatness—comes when we pursue saintliness.
Let’s take a look, therefore, at that last example that I
named: Saint Teresa of Calcutta (or “Mother Teresa”). I think that most people you encounter would
agree that Mother Teresa was a great human being. This little woman from Albania, who strove
simply to respond to the Lord’s call to care for the world’s poorest in the
streets of Calcutta, had world-wide influence: not because she was a skilled
politician or was business savvy, but rather because she strove for saintliness
in everything that she did; and in achieving this heroic greatness she awakened
that dormant desire for greatness in the hearts of everyone that she met.
What Mother Teresa proved—and what all the saints prove,
really—is that true greatness is found when we live the Beatitudes: for she was
poor in spirit before she was poor, she mourned for the most neglected in the
streets of Calcutta, she was meek in how she approached others and in her own
perception of her work, she hungered and thirsted for righteousness both for
herself and especially for others, she was merciful to all whom she
encountered, she strove to remain clean of heart by frequently confessing her
sins, she strove to make peace because she saw war and conflict as cause of so
much injustice, and she was persecuted by those who wrongly saw in her a veiled
attempt to gain influence and power in the world. Mother Teresa achieved greatness, not in
spite of her saintliness, but precisely because of it.
My brothers and sisters, All Saints Day is celebration of
the women and men who have gone before us having achieved greatness precisely
in their saintliness. And it is a
reminder to each of us of our need to pursue the greatness for which we are
destined—to be glorified like God in heaven—by pursuing heroic virtue in this
world as modeled for us in the saints.
Our inspiration? Saint John gives
this to us in our second reading when he says, “See what love the Father has
bestowed on us that we may be called children of God” and “Everyone who has
this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.”
The good news is that God has planned the way that each of
us is to become a saint. We call this
our “vocation”. God created each of us
out of love and he has called each of us to a specific way of living through
which we can help build his kingdom and become saints. This call could be to marriage, to the
priesthood, to the consecrated religious life, or to the sacred single life. Everyone who has achieved sainthood (that is,
everyone who has already gathered around the throne of the Lamb in heaven) has
done so by discerning God’s call and then by striving to live that calling to
the best of his/her ability.
Because the marriage vocation is so common (common, because
it is necessary to continue human life), it is easy for a young person to think
automatically that he/she may be called to marriage. This vocation is best discerned, however,
when a young person has also considered whether God may be calling him/her to the
priesthood or religious life. Too often
a young person decides that he/she will get married without ever considering if
God is calling him/her to something else.
This is a tragedy! Not because
the priesthood or religious life is somehow better than marriage—they are
equally worthy callings—but rather because if a young person does not discern
his/her calling well (considering all of the ways that God might be calling
him/her), he/she may find him/herself dissatisfied with his/her life choice,
tempting him/her to live a mediocre life, instead of a life of greatness to
which he/she has been called.
Today, therefore, my brothers and sisters, I want to urge
you to do whatever you can to help the young people in your lives to consider
all of the ways God may be calling them to greatness so as to discern the
particular way he is calling each of them.
I especially urge you to help them discern the call to priesthood and
religious life. Not many young people
are pursuing these vocations, but I assure you that it isn’t because God is not
calling them! He is calling them! It is, rather, that they have not been taught
to listen for God’s call nor have they been encouraged to respond and supported
when they do.
I believe that this is especially true in our Hispanic
communities. Do you realize that, here
in the United States, if someone is younger than 30 years old and professes to
be a Catholic, that young person is more likely to be Hispanic than Anglo? Why then are our seminaries and convents
filled with Anglos? Part of the reason,
for sure, is an inadequate outreach to Hispanic families by vocations
programs. In our diocese we are striving
to address that problem. The other major
part of the problem, however, is that Hispanic families are not doing enough to
encourage and support young men and women to discern God’s call and to follow
it.
I understand that there is a unique pressure for young
Hispanics here in the United States to work and earn a salary in order to help
support their families both here and in their home country. Nevertheless, we must be ready to trust that
God will take care of us when we choose to live for him. By following our authentic vocation, no
matter which vocation it may be, we are choosing to live for God, and he will
not fail to take care of us.
My brothers and sisters, this All Saints Day, let’s wipe
out the false separation between the two questions—“What do you want to be?”
and “What do you want to do?”—and let’s unite them by asking them this way:
“What do you want to be?” and “How are you going to be it?” If what we want to be is “saints” then we
will discern God’s true vocation for our lives and we will strive to live it in
the best way that we can. In this way we
will see that what we do will begin to be colored more and more by the
Beatitudes and will move us ever closer to the true greatness that our hearts
so deeply desire and for which we are destined.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI famously once said, “The world
offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness!” This All Saints Day, my brothers and sisters,
let us commit ourselves, strengthened by the grace that we have in Jesus Christ
through his sacrifice which we re-present here at this altar, to strive for
that greatness for which we were made.
For it is in striving for it that we will truly achieve human
excellence; and it is then that we will truly be saints.
Given at St. Patrick’s Parish:
Kokomo, IN – November 1st, 2020
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