Following the Saints All The Way, All Saints Day, November 1, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
All Saints Day 2023
November 1, 2023
Rev 7:2-4.9-14, Ps 24, 1 Jn 3:1-3, Mt 5:1-12

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

• In the Office of Readings that priests, religious and many lay people pray at dawn, the Church ponders the words of the great 12th century Doctor of the Church Saint Bernard of Clairvaux who says that on All Saints Day we do more than celebrate the saints, the great and famous saints like him we know about, and the countless quiet saints, those whom Pope Francis calls the “saints next door,” among whom we pray are many of those who passed on to us the gift of the faith, who died in the love of the Lord and now live in His love. The saints are the multitude who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” as we heard in today’s first reading, and brought those white baptismal garments “unstained into the everlasting life of heaven,” like they were instructed to do on the day of their baptism. These are the “great multitude that no one could count, from every nation,” who have not just been called “children of God” through baptism, as St. John told us in today’s second reading, but have lived as children of God throughout their lives, seeking to love God with all their mind, heart, soul and strength and to love their neighbor as Christ loved them. They are the ones who, as we prayed in the Psalm, have longed to see God’s face, whose hands were sinless, whose heart was pure, whose desires were not for vain things but for the things of God. These are the ones who have ascended “the mountain of the Lord,” the eternal Jerusalem, and who “stand in his holy place.” These are the ones who are singing today in that holy place the beautiful endless song glimpsed in the passage from Revelation, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
• Bernard says that today’s solemnity is not just about them. He writes, “The saints have no need of honor from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs. Clearly, if we venerate their memory, it serves us, not them. … Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company. … We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, the council of apostles, the great host of martyrs, the noble company of confessors and the choir of virgins. In short, we long to be united in happiness with all the saints.”
• So the celebration of All Saints Day, in having us focus on the saints, is meant to help us orient our life to holiness, happiness and heaven. As the ancient black spiritual intones, “O Lord, I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in.” All Saints Day is meant to help us to will the means to that end, to choose the narrow road that leads to life, and to invoke the powerful intercession of the saints so that we will indeed be in their number.
• One of my joys here in New York City is to lead tours of the most beautiful Churches in Manhattan. One of the most resplendent is the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola on Park Avenue and 84th Street. St. Ignatius is someone who shows us how to make the choice for God. As one of the great paintings in the sanctuary depicts, as a young man, Ignatius was a vain Basque soldier seeking worldly honor on the battlefield. In the Battle of Pamplona, however, he had his right leg shattered and left calf torn off by a cannonball. To pass the time in what would turn out to be a nine-month convalescence at his family’s castle, the only option for him — centuries before the distractions of modern media — was reading. He tried without avail to get his hands on the epic tales of chivalry and romance common to the epoch. The only volumes to be found were a life of Christ and a book on the lives of the saints. As he read, he was pierced by his shallowness compared to the saints’ substance and roused by the courage of the martyrs in fighting the good fight on the battlefield that mattered most. In contrast to his narcissistic pursuit of earthly honors, the saints’ seeking and seizing the most lasting and valuable treasure captivated him. After reading about Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Dominic of Guzman, the 13th Century founders of the Franciscans and Dominicans respectively, he asked one of the most important questions in history: “These men were of the same frame as I. Why, then, should I not do what they have done?” He resolved to strive, with God’s help, to do what they had done. He made the commitment to serve the true King and to sacrifice everything to extend the kingdom of God. All Saints Day is meant to spur us to seek to do what he and they have done, too, because there’s no reason why, with God’s help, we cannot live our faith today with the same determination and love with which the saints young and old, male and female, of every generation have done.
• One of the things I love most about the Church of St. Ignatius is that on the front right and left of the Church there are two extraordinary bronze doors, designed by the former of the pastor of the parish in the 1920s, Fr. Patrick O’Gorman, that testify not just to how the saints are models for us but about the means for us to become like them. On the left is a door focused on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and on the right another door focused on the Beatitudes. It’s the Holy Spirit who helps us to become saints and on the southern door, Father O’Gorman put a face on each of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: for counsel, our Lady, Queen of Saints; for fortitude, St. Agnes; for knowledge, St. Dominic; for piety, St. Francis of Assisi; for understanding, Thomas Aquinas; for fear of the Lord, St. Jerome; and for wisdom, St. Ignatius. The overwhelming message of the door is that the saints show us how to cooperate with the work of sanctification the Holy Spirit wants to carry out in us. On the northern door, Fr. O’Gorman does something similar with each of the beatitudes, depicting particular saints who show us how to live out what Jesus teaches us in the Gospel about the path to true beatitude. For poverty of spirit, he depicts St. Vincent de Paul; for meekness, St. Thomas More; for mourning, St. Camillus de Lellis; for hunger and thirst for holiness, St. Francis de Sales; for mercy, St. Anthony of Padua; for purity of heart, St. Kateri Tekakwitha; for peacemakers, Our Lady, Queen of Peace; and for those who suffer for the sake of Christ, the martyr St. Cecilia. Each of those panels shows us how to follow Jesus on the path that will make us holy as he is holy, to love as he loves, to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.
• We know that the path of the beatitudes stands in stark contrast to the path that most of the people in the world, that most students at Columbia, believe will lead to human happiness and fulfillment. Jesus’ words present us with the choice on which our lives hinge. The world tells us that to be happy, we have to be rich. Jesus says, rather, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will inherit the kingdom of heaven.” The world tells us we’re happy when we don’t have a concern in the world. Jesus says, on the other hand, “Blessed are those” who are so concerned with others that “they mourn” over their own and others’ miseries, “for they will be comforted” by him eternally. Worldly know-it-alls say, “You have to be strong and powerful to be happy.” Jesus, in contrast, retorts, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” The spiritually worldly shout increasingly more each day that to be happy, we have to have all our sexual fantasies fulfilled and our culture promotes promiscuous movie stars and singers as those who have it made. Jesus, however, says “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” The world preaches, “You’re happy when you accept yourself,” and espouses an “I’m okay, you’re okay,” brand of moral relativism. Jesus says, though, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for holiness for they will be filled.” The world says, “You’re happy when you don’t start a fight, but finish it,” and lives by the philosophy of might makes right in both interpersonal and international contexts, but Jesus says “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” And our culture increasingly declares, “You’re happy when everyone considers you nice, when you don’t have an enemy in the world,” while Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” and “blessed are you when people revile you, persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account,” “for their reward will be the kingdom of heaven. We’ve long forgotten who were the richest, sexiest, most powerful, popular, or celebrated people of centuries past, yet we remember the saints depicted on the two bronze doors of St. Ignatius. And we all know who are the truly blessed ones. Today is a day in which they’re all praying for us to resolve to follow them along the way of the Beatitudes and of life according to the Holy Spirit.
• The greatest means we have to grow in holiness is the food of the saints, which is Jesus Christ in Holy Communion. As Pope Francis wrote five years ago in his exhortation on holiness, “When we receive [Jesus] in Holy Communion, we renew our covenant with him and allow him to carry out ever more fully his work of transforming our lives.” When we receive Jesus well, we enter into communion with him who is holy, holy, holy, as he seeks to sanctify us from the inside out. Worshipping Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, outside of us in adoration, and inside of us after Holy Communion, is the best means to prepare us for what the saints now eternally enjoy.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

After this I had a vision of a great multitude,
which no one could count,
from every nation, race, people, and tongue.
They stood before the throne and before the Lamb,
wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.
They cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne,
and from the Lamb.”

All the angels stood around the throne
and around the elders and the four living creatures.
They prostrated themselves before the throne,
worshiped God, and exclaimed:

“Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving,
honor, power, and might
be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me,
“Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?”
I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.”
He said to me,
“These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress;
they have washed their robes
and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.”

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you
and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.
Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will be great in heaven.”

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