Most of us, immediately after we were baptized, we were dressed in a white robe. (You may have that white dress or even some photos of you dressed in it!) When it was placed on us, the priest or deacon addressed us by name, saying these words, “You have become a new creation and have clothed yourself in Christ. See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven.”
In our first reading today, St. John gets a glimpse, across many generations to come, of a “great multitude which no one can count, from every nation, race, people and tongue, dressed in white robes, standing before the throne of God.” Today’s feast reminds us that all of the baptized, including you and me, are called to stand someday before God with that great, uncountable throng of people from every part of the world, from every age! According to St. John in our second readings, we are already God’ adopted children! As children of light, we were called at our baptisms to become saints! Yes, you heard me! We are heaven-bound! We are called to become saints!
What is a saint? Most of us have developed our ideas about holiness from a well-intentioned, but narrow, view of canonized saints. In its effort to hold up before us models of holiness, the church has sometimes elevated some saints to the point that they have sometimes become super-human! Some saints come off as life-hating masochists. Mostly virgins and celibates, some might admire them, but most people do not see themselves imitating them! My favorite definition of sanctity comes from Kentucky’s famous Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. This is the definition of holiness that guides me personally. “Sanctity,” he writes, “is not a matter of being less human, but more human that other men. This implies a greater capacity for concern, for suffering, for understanding, for sympathy, and also for humor, for joy, for appreciation of the good and beautiful things of life.” This is the same message as the Beatitudes in today’s gospel! To borrow an idea from an old commercial, holiness is about “being all that you can be.” Holiness, then, is not about being perfect, but about becoming the very best human being we can become: the best spouse, the best parent, the best church member, the best student, the best doctor, the best teacher, the best politician, the best artist, the best social worker or the best priest! The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that married couples and priests are not only called to become holy, but they are called to lead others to holiness. Married couples are called to lead their spouses and children to holiness. Priests are called to lead the faith communities entrusted to them to holiness. It goes on to say that if we do it right, it will make us holy in the process!
In other words, we become holy, not by mimicking the saints of old, but by answering our own unique calls. We become holy, not by wearing sandals, a hair shirt and living on bread and water, but by living out our own unique call, not somebody else’s call. We hear our calls by listening to our hearts. While it is true that some people in the Bible received their calls in visions and dramatic events, most of us receive our calls in a simple, quiet knowing, the proverbial still, small voice within us. To hear our call we do, however, have to shut up long enough for God to get a words in edgewise! It helps to spend some quality time with God. Most of the time, calls are not shown to us directly, but are mediated through other people, symbols, dreams, symptoms, happenstance and synchronicities. We need to recognize that our calls can come in many disguises. Our unfolding as human beings requires that we be in constant dialogue with God who has called us to co-create ourselves, to do something with our lives and to contribute to the world God has given us.
Someday, after we have done something with our lives,
after we have become all we can be, God will call us home to be with him
forever. At our funerals, we will be carried into church, one last time. Our
bodies will be sprinkled with baptismal water and we will be covered over with a large white pall, a huge reminder of our white baptismal robe. At the end of our funeral Mass, dressed in
that white robe, our family and friends will commend us to God
with these words, “May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs
come to welcome you and take you to the holy city….May choirs of angels welcome you…..” Then, we too, will be on our way to sainthood! Some day, in the not-too-distant future, the
church will gather on an All Saints Day, like this one, to honor us!
