November 1 |
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Feast of All Saints Mt 5/1-12 |
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| Background: Although Jesus was quite explicit that he came to tell us about God's passionate and implacable love, we have still through the centuries tried to persuade people that they had to earn God's love by doing the hardest things they could find. Somehow we never quite understood that our good works reflect God's love instead of earning it. So the beatitudes are not new obligations, a new set of commandments. They are rather descriptions of how those who fully understand God's love can be recognized. They do not cause sanctity. Rather they are indicators of it. Moreover, no one ever practices the beatitudes save badly because we are such flawed and incomplete (because mortal) beings. However, the presence of men and women who live the beatitudes, however, imperfectly, is a sign of God's presence. Saints are stories of God's love. |
read the padre |
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Story: Once upon a time there was this priest who was turned off by saints. He felt that his teachers all through school had forced the saints down his throat. He was sick and tired of saints. Moreover, the saints that he had heard about were creepy people. You wouldn't want them on your parish council or your teen club committees. They'd preach at you all the time. So when his parish built a new church he was careful to see that, while there was a crucifix and statutes of Mary and Joseph (he had nothing against either of them) in it, there were no other statues. Some of the people in the parish didn't like this very much. It was a Catholic Church after all and there ought to saints in it, lots of saints. If the local Protestants didn't like it, well that was there problem, besides they had churches of their own didn't they? However, they liked the priest because he preached a good homily and was nice to the kids and smiled at everyone in back of church after the Eucharist, so they didn't complain too much. WELL, one day St. Brigid stopped by the rectory to demand why the parish church looked like a Protestant church. The priest knew it was St. Brigid because she was wearing her dark blue Celtic habit with the St. Brigid cross in gold (like the colors of the Notre Dame football team), but the priest didn't back down. He told her why not. Well, she said, you don't know any of us very well if you think we're like that. The priest admitted that saints don't walk in the rectory every day. She said yes they do and told him the names of some very wonderful people in his parish, from a little girl in second grade up to an old man who came to Mass every morning. Isn't your parish just crawling with saints. I mean real saints said, the priest. Sure, aren't they all real saints, just like me. But I tell you what I want you to do. Read the autobiography of me colleague, Sister Therese of the Infant Jesus and the Holy Face. I won't said the priest, she's the worst creep of them all. That's what they've made of her, St.Brigid said. Here, I just happened to bring the book along. It's a translation which won't be published till next year. Read it like a good boy. So he read it that night and cried when Therese died. The next Sunday there was a statue of her in the church. She didn't look creepy either. |
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