All Saints

The Solemnity of All Saints

Revelation 7: 2-4, 9-14; Psalm 24; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12

“He had a bad temper, he was an introvert, he preferred to be alone and he was a perfectionist.”

“For all of his life, he struggled.”

He was also uncompromising, a friend, recalled. 

“When he had his mind made up about something,he was relentless — really stubborn. Like a steamroller.”

“He was such a good person, he had a good heart.”

His colleagues found him divisive, subversive and accused him of inciting violence. A judgement which for him was painful and isolating.

He is remembered as suffering through bouts of anxiety and depression.

These are the memories people have of Oscar Arnulfo Romero, the martyred archbishop of San Salvador who was canonized on 14 October 2018. I found these memories to be very hope filled. Do you? I do. Because I believe we have this sense that holiness, being a saint, is equated somehow with perfection. And Romero was not perfect. In fact it sounds like he could be quite difficult to be around: bad tempered, stubborn, perfectionist, depressed – are not words we usual use to describe saints. Even if they are wrapped up with a good heart.

What then does it mean to respond to the universal call of holiness?

As part of our inquiry we might ask, how does a shy, book worm of a man cause enough fear in a military government to decide they needed to assassinate him? How does an anxious, introvert of a bishop keep the Vatican watching and wondering about the fittingness of his appointment as archbishop and cause his brother bishops to turn on him?  How does a shy priest, in the pulpit become a giant?

What caused a conversion in Romero? What caused him to put his life on the line by speaking up for his people? It took the assassination of his friend, Fr. Rutilio Grande, SJ, along with an elderly man named Manuel Solorzano and a sixteen-year-old boy named Nelson Lemus. After a late night Mass with their bullet riddled bodies lying before the altar, the archbishop spent hours listening to the stories of suffering experienced by the local peasant farmers. The direction of his life was changed. He became a lioness protecting her cubs.

Governments and even the institutional church do not always readily recognize holiness. They are often threatened by it. But the people do recognize holiness and are drawn to it. In a country on the brink of civil war marked by the kidnapping, torture and murder of its poorest civilians, Romero’s voice echoed above the violence that engulfed his country. The transistor radio was his weapon. Live broadcasts of his homilies became the most popular program in the country. And the people listened to him because He gave them hope.

Holiness is God shining through our human weakness. Holiness means that God seriously respects our humanity and yet calls us to an openness on our part to allow God to use us as God wills. This conversion to openness is what can be most painful. Image the archbishop listening for hours to stories of his people. Stories he had been sheltered from by his office. Stories which transformed his heart with strength and courage so that a shy, introvert became a powerful voice for the voiceless. That is holiness.

The journey of holiness is what we pray for each day…Our Father…your will be done on earth.  Our Father, may I be supple and yielding enough to let you use me as you will.

How will people remember you through which the grace and glory of God shined through?