Saints Were Sinners Too: Homily for All Saints

Rv 7:2-4, 9-14

Ps 24: 1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6

I Jn 3:1-3

Mt 5:1-12a

 

The Church's practice of venerating and invoking saints is an ancient one.  During the Church’s first fifteen hundred years the cults of various saints began as local phenomena.  Saints were men and women, renown for their sanctity, whose burial sites the locals venerated and to whom they prayed for intercession with God.  Popular acclamation was sufficient for sainthood.  There was no formal procedure within the Church to officially recognize these holy men and women until around the sixth century when some degree of official sanction began to evolve.  It ultimately took nine more centuries before the papacy assumed control of the process of declaring holy men and women to be saints.

 

With time the veneration of saints degenerated into superstition of the most bizarre kind. And truth be told, human nature being what it is, there are superstitious customs surrounding the saints that have nothing to do with sanctity, faith, or God. Consider, for example, the superstition of burying a statue of St. Joseph in the lawn so as to sell a house.  There are actual 'house selling kits' available that include a plastic statue of St. Joseph, instructions, and one or two prayers.  I believe the statue had to be buried upside down. No idea why that would be.  Someone sent me a St. Joseph kit when I was selling my first house--this in a different life.  However, the house sold in 24 hours for more than the asking price.  Alas, that was not true of the second one. Indeed, I closed on that house on Halloween during my first year as a novice.  The unburied St. Joseph statue got lost in one of the many moves between purchasing the first house and selling the second.  And there was no way I was driving to VT to plant it when found.  

 

Despite the occasional superstitions and other forms of misunderstanding, the saints are critical for our spiritual health.  They are important guides to living the Christian life.  They are examples of, and models for, how to live the Christian life.  And we also understand them as intercessors before God on our behalf. The Church sets the first day of November as a holy day of obligation in honor of all the saints.  

 

The etymology of the word Halloween is holy eve, the eve of All Saints. Alas, the eve of All Saints seems to be descending farther and farther into a festival of debauchery, vandalism, and, for a certain breed of adults,  cross-dressing.

 

 

All Saints Day honors all saints, those who have been formally canonized and those known only to God.   Indeed, many of the saints on the calendar have never been formally canonized.  St. Bruno, founder of the Carthusians, is one example.  The readings help to explain what sainthood is. 

 

Revelation is the most wildly misunderstood and sadly misused book in the entire canon.  It is part of the difficult genre of Biblical literature known as apocalyptic, a genre that will never be completely understood or interpreted.  However, it is neither Ancient Near East science fiction nor the progenitor of Star Wars and its ilk.  

 

Apocalyptic literature was meant to give hope during times of persecution. It was written in a such a way that it was understood by those who were being persecuted but it remained unintelligible to outsiders, something like the way teenagers speak when their parents or teachers are around.  The symbolism in Revelation is dense. Not all of the symbols and allusions are understood, nor will they be.  Numerology is part of that symbolism that cannot be taken literally but, like the saints, is vested in significant superstition.  Superstitious numerology continues today. 

 

Many Chinese hotels do not have a fourth floor because the character for the number four looks too much like the one for death. According to a Chinese friend, this is particularly true in Hong Kong, where the rooms on higher floors that do have a 4 such as 14 or 34, are a bit less expensive to book.   A travel tip I hope I can use.  On this side of the world, some American hotels and even hospitals, do not have a 13th floor for the obvious reasons. 

 

Meanings attached to numbers in apocalyptic literature went well beyond simple amounts. Indeed, every number in scripture, including those recounting numbers of fish caught, and so on, is invested with layers of extra-numerical meaning. Sainthood, thus, is not limited to the numerical 144,000 described in Revelation. Though certain fundamentalist sects would argue that statement to the death, it  that is their problem not ours.  

 

We must remember that hyperbole is not a 20th century invention.  Indeed, scripture contains sterling examples of it.  In Revelation the number 1000 signifies an immense number, the equivalent of a bazillion today. One hundred forty-four is the square of twelve, a number which carries its own symbolism within the tribes of Israel. Thus, 144,000 signifies a multitude beyond counting or an infinite number that exceeds even the current U.S. national debt.  I think. 

 

Few of us will be canonized but we are all called to sainthood.  Despite the claims of the rapturists, there is room for everyone.  Who can hope to be numbered among the saints?  Who can hope to ascend the mountain of the Lord?   One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean, who desires not what is vain.  

 

As John wrote in his letter,  God the Father has bestowed such love on us that we are the children of God.  We are his beloved because of Jesus’ radical self-surrender.  That radical self-surrender brought sinful humanity to redemption.  His act opened the path to those who wish to ascend the mountain of the Lord.  

 

The stepping stones of that path are outlined in the Beatitudes of Matthew’s Gospel which is far and away the most well-known part of the much longer Sermon on the Mount.  Read through the “Blessed are” statements some time today.  They are an expansion of the psalmist’s answer to the questions:  Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord?  Who may stand in his holy place?  The Beatitudes tell us how to be those whose hands are sinless, whose hearts are clean, and who desire not what is vain. We do not know what we shall be.  We do not know what it will be like to be in God’s presence. We do not know what it will be like to be numbered among the saints.  But Matthew tells us that for those who are  it will be wonderful.  There is no reason to quibble with that.   

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Meant to post this yesterday, All Saints Day.  However, I was on the road.  Arrived home more than a little tired.  Thus I'll publish it today on All Soul's and include the photos from All Saints Day in Slovenia.  All Saints is a national holiday that is seen almost as All Souls Eve.  Even the non-religious visit the cemeteries for prayer.  I went to Preddvor with Fr. Jože.  It was an amazing experience.  Later that night, back in Ljubljana the entire community went to the Jesuit plot in Žale, the municipal cemetery to pray.  I've never seen anything like the candles. 

Fr. Jože at his family parish in Preddvor where I joined him and the pastor in celebrating Mass.  I am eternally grateful that he invited me to go with him.  Unforgettable experience.  

The view from the edge of the church yard.  A lot of wrought-iron in Slovenia.  Preddvor is at 1500 feet elevation.  The mountains a tad higher.  

The Church from which we processed to the cemetery, the location from which I took the photo.  Fr. Jože wanted to visit the family graves which gave me an opportunity to shoot.  

When we arrived in procession from the church with about 150 people following us, there were several hundred more already standing at the family plot in total silence.  

Unlike cemeteries in the U.S. where one might find one or two candles at a grave there were multiple ones at each grave.   Along with flowers.  European graveyards are very different from American flat-tombstones ones.  

The church as shot from the cemetery.  

Candles at just one family plot. 

The Jesuit plot at žale, an enormous municipal cemetery in LJ.  Am grateful to the man who insisted that I take my camera.  Wow.  

The funeral chapel was surrounded by votive lights.  The heat emanating from the candles was almost uncomfortable.  In side the chapel the heat was intolerable.  I was going to shoot in the chapel but the heat had me fleeing in moments.  

The photo below was taken in the opposite direction I was facing of the photo above.  It was a lot of candles.  

+ Fr. Jack, SJ, MD