Feast of All Saints - Fr. Leo
Today we honor and pray for thousands of women and men who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. People whom we believe are sharing in the heavenly kingdom, and who from their union with God, intercedes for us to be as God seeking, and filled with the Holy Spirit, as they were, as God wants all of us to be.
We believe these women and men of all ages have reached a spiritual greatness as it were, and are living examples of the Christian way of life. Their greatness is ageless as holiness is beyond time and space. As we honor them and ask for their intercession, we do well to consider the kind of greatness the Saints received.
Here, our sure guide for reflection comes from the Beatitudes articulated by Christ in today’s gospel. The blessed are the meek, the humble, the merciful, the sorrowful and the clean of heart, and those who long for God and God’s justice. Beneath all these virtues lies humility. Only in being humble before God and others can we be like the Christ who humbled himself for our sake. Humility keeps us from the “power” the world proclaims and sees through its lie that brings death and not love and life.
Let us take mercy as an example. To be merciful requires us to embrace our own need for mercy. Only then can compassion be born in our hearts, and our enemies turned into sisters and. brothers. In doing so, we become like the humble sinner praying in the temple next to the ‘righteous” Pharisee.
Along with mercy’s humility, we can contemplate another aspect of mercy that is a spiritual kind of power. The power that answers the following question. What is more powerful, to punish or to show mercy? Christ answered this question on the cross, an act of love he continues to pour out on us at every moment through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Today we ask to become like the saints. We pray for the Spirit to help us desire God before all else, and to love the humility that makes us great in His love. All Holy Saints, pray for us now and always. Amen.