All Saints

Solemnity of All Saints 2019 – Cycle C Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14; Psalm 24; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12a

What does it mean to be holy?

The Hebrew concept of holiness originally had no moral content.  It didn’t mean being good in opposition to being evil or sinful.  Holiness simply meant having God’s stamp on you; being marked and set apart as God’s own.  The Bible records two instances of people being marked by God.

In Genesis after the murder of Abel we read, “So the LORD put a mark on Cain, so that no one would kill him at sight” [Genesis 4:15].

The second instance is from The Book of Revelation which was listened to for today’s feast.  “Then I saw another angel come up from the East, holding the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” 

In both instances it is God who claims the murderous Cain and the people who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb carrying palm branches, all signs of martyrs.

It would seem holiness is not something we achieve or strive toward but rather a gift that is freely given from God.  The Letter of John is clear, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  Yet so we are”.   The “yet so we are” has a sense of surprise in it, does it not?  John all of a sudden seems to realize the full import of what he wrote.  Oh yes, we ARE the children of God!  It dawns on John that we are already chosen, marked out, by God’s love.  In the baptismal liturgy the priest says to the person to be baptized, “I claim you for Christ our Saviour by the sign of the cross”.  This quality of holiness that each of us has then begins with an acknowledgment and acceptance of that love.

Consider that Cain, though condemned to wander the earth, eventually marries, has a son and settles down as the founder of a city.  Not the ending we would expect, is it?  Did Cain finally accept God’s love despite his murderous act which was only one act within his life?  And thus it is with all the formal saints we commemorate today.  Pope Benedict reminds us that “the saints have not ‘fallen from Heaven’.  They are people like us, who also [had] complicated [lives and] problems.  Holiness do not consist in never having erred or sinned”. 

The saints came to realize and accept they were chosen and marked.  And so are you and me.

What does it mean to be holy?

It’s like standing in the bright autumn sun and soaking it in, raising your spirits against the coming darkness of winter and knowing you are part of something greater than yourself.