Happy All Saints Day. Today we celebrate all those Saints who have gone on to the fullness of their Salvation before us, whether known, unknown, canonized or not. Their fullness of Life now is hope for us. We also focus today on the concept of the Communion of Saints - all those who belong to and are grafted into Christ, whether here on earth, or those in the heavenly realm (purgatorial front hallway all the way deep into the Bridal chamber). We ask for their help, their prayers - prayers from the big-picture perspective.
We went to Mass tonight to join in the celebration with the whole Church. The Bishop presided and I'm sure he'd want to know I liked his homily quite a bit. :) He spoke of the big and the small, all of us, all the Saints we know of and those whom we have known in our lives and know now. He went on into the Gospel reading, the Beatitudes, and borrowed a little from Pope Benedict's take in his new book, about how this list is really a veiled Christology, if you will. They describe Jesus. He is the personification of the Beatitudes, and as much as we allow Him to permeate our lives and change us, they will also be biographical of us. Our hope is in Him, in Whom we trust to create in us His own Life. Good stuff - THE stuff.
I leave you with a litany of sorts - of Saints I have known and of some whom I one day will know. I honor them as my now older siblings in Christ. I look to them for aid in my own journey which is still pretty sticky at times.
Ora Pro Nobis.... - Father Killian Mooney - Camilla Bauer - Mark Palmer - Chad Canipe - Verna Nelson - Francis of Assisi - Patrick of Ireland - Columba of Ireland - Benedict of Nursia - Thomas Merton - Mary, Mother of God
"Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss." John Wesley
"Keep your eyes on the crucifix, for Jesus without the cross
is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus
is a burden without a reliever." Fulton J. Sheen
"...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be
completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen