November 1, 2015

All Saints

November 1, 2015:  All Saints

See 16 connections with today?
Legend below


 Listen

Pope Francis
Angelus:  Saints are people who belong to God and carry God's seal in their lives and on their persons.  We're all God's children and received the Father's seal at Baptism.  Saints are those who lived their lives in the grace of Baptism, keeping the seal intact, behaving like God's children, trying to imitate Jesus.  Saints are examples to imitate.  They're not only the ones who have been canonized; they can be next door neighbors, members of our families, or others we've met.  Be grateful to them and to God for having given them to us as examples of fidelity.  How many good people we've met; how often we exclaim, "this person is a saint!"  Imitating saints' love and mercy is like perpetrating their presence.  Acts of tenderness, help, and closeness can appear insignificant but in God’s eyes are eternal, because love and mercy are stronger than death.
Homily:  We may ask ourselves how can the poor in spirit, or mourners, be blessed or happy?  Because those whose hearts are free of worldly cares and those who have experienced the sadness and pain of others will be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven and will feel God’s tenderness and consolation.
    • "Blessed are the meek":  How often we act the opposite, fretting, complaining, raising our voices, not following God’s path of patience and humility.  Like parents who show patience towards their children, Jesus followed the path of meekness, suffering exile, persecution, false accusations, and death for our sake.
    • "Blessed those who hunger and thirst for justice"; they'll be filled with God’s justice.
    • "Blessed are the merciful":  we're sinners in need of forgiveness, and we must forgive and show mercy to others.
    • "Blessed are the peacemakers":  those who work to build peace and reconciliation find true happiness, unlike those who cheat, or gossip, or take advantage of others.
Lord, give us the grace to be simple, humble, and meek and learn how to cry, the grace to work for justice and peace and the grace to ask your forgiveness that we may become instruments of your mercy.
Read
  • Rv 7:2-4, 9-14  Angel: “Do no damage until we put the seal on God's servants.”  144,000 were marked, from every tribe of Israel.  White-robed multitude:  “Salvation comes from our God, seated on the throne, and from the Lamb!”  Angels worshiped:  “Blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to God!”  Elder:  “They made their robes white in the Lamb's blood.”
  • Ps 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6  "Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face."  The Lord’s are the world and those who dwell in it.  Those with clean heart may stand in God's holy place; God will bless and reward them.
  • 1 Jn 3:1-3  See the Father's love:  We're God's children now and shall be like him; we'll see him as he is.  Hope; make yourself pure like God.
  • Mt 5:1-12a  Jesus taught:  “Blessed the poor in spirit, mourners, meek, hungry for justice, merciful, clean of heart, peacemakers, persecuted, insulted; they'll be comforted, satisfied, shown mercy, rewarded, inherit the land, see God, be called God's children, be greatly rewarded.  Rejoice!
Reflect
    • Creighton:  See the multitude, saints in God's presence, who see him as he is, their deepest longing fulfilled.  Our own desire to see God waxes and wanes; we can even lose awareness of God in our lives.  Those who have discovered the blessedness of poverty of spirit, hunger and thirst for justice, showing mercy grow in desire for God.  Has my desire for God grown?  Has our desire for God grown?  May we sense the saints' desire that we join them.  All saints, pray for us for the grace of longing for God.
    • One Bread, One Body:  "The guide to heaven":  We can't become holy and join the heavenly family on our own power but can let it be done to us.  God sent the Spirit to make us holy; we just need to follow the Spirit's lead, but it's hard because of our human nature.  We must allow the Spirit to crucify us to the world, crucify our worldly passions and desires, and become holy like our Father and see him as he is.  Holiness is the fruit of the Spirit, not of our efforts.
      • All Saints/ Durer
    • Passionist:  Today's readings:  vision of a multitude of those who worship God and have followed Jesus; reminder of God's intense love for us; the beatitudes.  They refer to saints from all ages, whether or not formally declared as saints, but today's feast honors the living as well as the dead.  Today's and tomorrow's feasts view the church as an assembly of people united and graced by God’s love, embracing us the living who long to see God’s face, and those who have gone before us and see God face to face now.
    • DailyScripture.net:  "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven":  We long for true happiness, the complete good.  Jesus says it's found in living the beatitudes.  The beatitudes respond to our God-given desire for happiness; they teach us the end to which God calls us, the kingdom, the vision of God, the joy and rest of the Lord; they confront us with choices about how to live.   God alone can satisfy our deepest needs and longings.  The beatitudes stand in contradiction to the world's understanding of happiness.  Poverty of spirit finds room and joy in possessing God as treasure.  Hunger of the spirit seeks nourishment and strength in God.  Sorrow and mourning over sin leads to freedom.  God reveals to the humble the true source of happiness.  The joy of heaven will more than compensate for the troubles we can expect here.  "No one can live without joy.  That's why a person deprived of spiritual joy goes after carnal pleasures" (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II, art. 4, ad. 2).
    Dress legend
    • 'Angel' pin:  Angels around throne:  “Blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, and might to our God!” (1st reading)
    • 'Lamb' tie bar:  A multitude stood before the Lamb; Salvation is from our God and the Lamb; the white-robed survived the time of distress and made their robes white in the Lamb's blood (1st reading)
    • White shirt:  Saints made their robes white in blood of the Lamb (1st reading)
    • 'Abacus' tie pin:  number of the marked (1st reading)
    • 'Children's faces' tie:  "Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face" (psalm); Saints (feast); the Father loves us so much, we're God's children (2nd reading)
    • 'Eyeball' tie pin:  we shall see God (2nd reading)
    • 'Peace sign' tie bar:  "Blessed be the peacemakers" (gospel)
    • 'Hand' tie pin:  Those with sinless hands... (psalm)
    • 'Hearts' suspenders:  ...and clean heart may stand in the Lord's holy place (psalm); God's love, Saints' love; Blessed the pure of heart (gospel)
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