This coming Friday, November 1, God calls us to celebrate All Saints Day, a Holyday of Obligation. Adoration/Confession will be offered at St. Mary, Bellechester, from 8:00-8:45AM with Solemn Mass at 9:00AM. Adoration/Confession will be offered at Holy Trinity, Goodhue, from 7:00 – 7:45PM with Solemn Mass at 8:00PM.
We will read from the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5:1-12a, but the Sermon continues to Mt. 7:27, and I highly recommend that you read and meditate on its entirety. It begins with the Beatitudes which Jesus lovingly gives to us as principles for growing in a personal relationship with God, and others.
The beatitudes guide us to a happier life on earth and to perfect happiness in heaven because we believe that God is a personal God, the divine King of the universe, who lovingly created each human in the divine image and likeness so that we can truly love God and others and love the truth of God’s ways of happiness and holiness. Although by sin our intellect has been darkened and our free will weakened, we can still reflect on God and freely choose God because of the graces that Jesus Christ won for us by his suffering, death and resurrection to Eternal life.
Knowing this, and that we can assuredly receive sanctify-ing grace in the seven sacraments when we are well disposed by resolving to live God’s Ten Commandments, we can better understand Christ’s famous Sermon on the Mount.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” This first beatitude corresponds to and deepens the first commandment: “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods beside me.”
When a person is poor in spirit, they enrich themselves by taking the Word of God to heart and are “blessed” by seeking the things of God through daily prayer, reading the Bible, and serving the Lord by helping others and sharing their faith journey with them.
“Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be com-forted.” This sounds strange, yet this second beatitude corresponds with the second commandment of God, “You shall not take God’s name in vain.” If you meditate on this beatitude, you discover that there are only two things that make a Chris-tian sad: sin and its effects.
We call ourselves by Christ’s name as Christians – followers of Christ – but our sins reveal that we are not always will-ing to follow him because of vanity. This makes us “mourn,” but as a practicing Christian we know that in Christ’s name we can receive the grace to repent of our sins, assuredly by celebrating the Sacrament of Confession, and receiving forgive-ness and “comfort” by resolving to sin no more, never giving up on his mercy.
This is how the saints lived. It was not that they never sinned, except for the Blessed Virgin Mary (“Hail, full of grace. The Lord is with you.” Lk. 1:28) but rather they persevered in seeking God’s forgiveness, forgave others and grew in the divine virtues of faith, hope and love by living the beatitudes.
The third beatitude “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land,” corresponds to the third command-ment, “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.” We “remember” to gather at church for weekend Mass as “meek” members of the Mystical Body of Christ. We worship God by offering our gifts and lives, to glorify God and to receive his natural and supernatural blessings for ourselves and our loved ones, living and deceased.
Not one family built and maintains our beautiful churches, ministries and cemeteries – this holy land – but
rather many “meek” laity and priests work together with their Bishop to bring about this land as God’s gift to us, with the promise of inheriting the new land of heaven by living in a state of grace – sanctifying grace which holds to the Ten Commandments and strives to live the beatitudes.
The most difficult beatitude is the last, “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”
This beatitude corresponds with the last two of God’s commandments: “You shall not covet you neighbor’s wife (spouse)” and “You shall not covet your neighbors’ goods.” Our tendency is to seek physical comfort instead of dying to self and opposing evil in the world by giving witness to the true teachings of Jesus Christ and his Catholic Church.
However, there are others like Christoph Probst (Nov. 6, 1919 – Feb. 22, 1943), a German medical student and father of three, who resisted Nazism – National Socialism. He grew up as an agnostic but was inspired by the principle of religious freedom and basic human rights that were under attack by the Nazis.
Some Catholics strongly opposed the Nazi socialists. Christoph joined a resistant group called “White Rose” which wrote and distributed leaflets against Nazi philosophy. He was caught and was executed in Munich, Germany.
Before his death Christoph called for a priest, was baptized, celebrated the Sacrament of Confession, and told the priest, “Now my death will be easy and joyful.” His youngest child was four weeks old.
We celebrate All Saints Day because we know that there are more Saints in heaven than just the most popular one’s like St. Francis of Assisi, St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Pope St. John Paul the Second.
Christoph was probably tempted to “covet” the life of his neighbors who went along to get along with the Nazis who murdered Jews and others, but the love and truth of God and neighbor spurred him on to resist this evil.
Jesus said that all his followers will be salted with fire (Mk. 9:49). This fire is the gift of the Holy Spirit, the divine per-son of the Holy Trinity who sanctifies us, to make us holy unto Jesus Christ by carrying our cross with Christ. Those who suffer because of the evil they oppose in today’s world can take Jesus’ words to heart, as did his saints: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”
Peace through Jesus Christ and Mary,
Fr. Thomas McCabe
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