We Believe in the Saints

Homily for All Saints Day, Year A
I think it is safe to say that all of the most important things we believe as Christians are celebrated today as we honor All Saints. We especially celebrate the what Christ teaches us about death, life, human identity, and our mission as Christians. Today, we celebrate our belief that death is not the end, that death has been conquered by Christ through his own death on the cross. The lives of the saints remind of the martyrs like St. Polycarp of Smryna who courageously accepted his own death because he knew that death was not the end.

Today, we celebrate what we believe is beyond death – the gift of eternity, the promised hope of the resurrection that God’s grace freely gives to us. The lives of the saints remind of the hope that was seen by people like St. Monica, who looked beyond the many sufferings of her home life to the glories of the other shore, the life that was yet to come.

Today, we remember what it means to be human, that we human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, and that we are called to love one another as God loves us. The lives of the saints reminds of people like St. Katharine Drexel, who saw God’s image reflected in African-American and Native American children who were often ignored by the rest of society.

Today, we honor those men and women who have taken God’s gifts seriously and have shaped their lives according to what God has given them. The lives of the saints reminds of people like St. John Bosco, who used his talents as a performer and magician to draw children together in order to tell them about Christ.

And so it is that all the most important things we believe as Christians are celebrated in the Saints – the belief that death is not the end, that God has opened for us the gates of heaven; the belief that we are all made in God’s image and likeness, and that we are called to use God’s gifts to spread the gospel. But it’s not just about them – the men and women of the past whose lives have already earned an eternal reward – it’s also about us. Today, we ask for the grace to follow not our own way, but the way of Christ – that we, too, may be saints.