All Saints Day

 Would you really like to become a saint?   Oh, I don’t mean the kind who gets canonized in a huge Mass in St. Peter’s square necessarily.  Well, what other kinds are there?  There are the millions and millions of good Catholic--Christian people who live their lives bravely and generously trying to be like Jesus in everything they think, say and do.  These are people who forgive those who have hurt them, or have hurt people they love.  They practice their faith, whether it’s in vogue that century, or not.  They live and die with Jesus, united to Jesus, confessing their sins, receiving Holy Communion, growing in virtue, serving others…and then they go to Heaven to live forever in unimaginable happiness!  

People say to me sometimes, “Father, I have never met a saint.”  I say, “Yes, you have.  Because anyone who is now in Heaven is a saint.”  We have all known many holy people who are now saints.  Heaven is populated greater than 99.9% by uncanonized saints!  This is why the Church celebrates All Saints Day on Nov 1^st.  

In fact, the Catholic Church “celebrates” and honors our beloved dead all through the month of November.  It begins with Halloween (All Saints Day Eve), and continues through our prayers and remembrances of our beloved dead.  On November 2^nd, All Souls Day, the Church prays for all the dead, asking God to be merciful to them and to bring them into Heaven, if they are not already there.  

We all know, from Sacred Scripture and Church teaching, that at the moment of death, our soul will leave our body and go before Jesus Christ for our Individual Judgment.  At that judgment, we will know exactly how we stand before God, and whether we will spend eternity in Heaven or hell.  We also know that there is a “time” or period of purification and growth, which we call Purgatory, for the purpose of being cleansed and healed from the damage caused by our sins.  This is a merciful Truth, because most people are simply not ready to see God Face to Face when they die.  They are not strong enough to endure the ecstasy which has been prepared for them!   Christlikeness through and through is what makes a person ready for that ecstasy.  

One of the things not revealed to us by Jesus about this whole process of death, judgment and purgatory is how long it takes.  I suppose we could say that it takes “no time” since there is no time as we understand it in the next life.  Psalm 90 says “a thousand years and a single day are the same in the sight of God.”  But there is certainly an intensity of purification which is not easy to endure, and not the same for each person and because of this we are instructed to pray for the dead.  In the Catholic Church, every day in every Mass, all over the world, hundreds of thousands of times...we pray for the dead.  Listen today during Mass.  You will hear it.  

November is actually one of my favorite seasons in the Church.  I am excited about Eschatology (the theological study of the four last things: death, judgment, Heaven and hell).  I am excited about Heaven.  I love the Truth that everyone who is in Heaven is a Saint!   Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live Face to Face with God; to see Him as He is, in all His infinite love, goodness, mercy, justice, knowledge, truth, beauty, goodness, kindness, imagination, music, food, etc…infinite in all those things.  And then to be able to enjoy them with millions of other perfect saints; people who have become exactly like Jesus!  Every tear will be wiped away.  Every wound will be healed.  Every heart will be full.  Fully filled…the fulfillment of all desire.  

Would you really like to become a saint?  I know; for man it is impossible.  But for God, all things are possible. 

Fr. Brett Brannen

Pastor