Don’t be afraid to be saints!

Revelation 7.2-4, 9-14 ‘Behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.’

1 John 3.1-3 ‘We shall see God as he is.’

Matthew 5.1-12a ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’

 

Let us all rejoice in the Lord,

as we celebrate the feast day in honour of all the Saints,

at whose festival the Angels rejoice and praise the Son of God.

+

The entrance antiphon for today, just quoted, captures what All Saints’ Day is all about: rejoicing in the Lord and celebrating a feast day in honour of all the Saints, which prompts angelic rejoicing and praise of Jesus Christ.

"Do not be afraid to be saints. Follow Jesus Christ who is the source of freedom and light. Be open to the Lord so that He may lighten all your ways"

Those stirring words of St John Paul II point to what we need to be saints.

Don’t be afraid to be saints!

Christ will lighten the way to that, as St John writes:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. (1 John 3.1)

Yes, by virtue of our baptism we are part of the plebs Sancta Dei, the ‘holy common people of God’, also known as the Church, the fellowship of saints.

We are saints, with a little ‘s,’ being formed as Saints with a big ‘S’.

As saints we have all it takes to become Saints: when the clutter of our own egos, misplaced desires and sin is cleared away; which it can be when we allow God’s grace in Jesus Christ to do that.

As the First Letter of John put it:

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3.2)

And this journey takes us deep into the heart of Jesus’ teaching, which is so beautifully distilled in the Beatitudes, those phrases of blessing, ‘blessed are…’, ‘blessed are…’

Again, St John says:

And everyone who thus hopes in [Jesus Christ] purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3.3)

That echoes Jesus own words:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5.8)

Being and becoming a Saint is to be formed more and more in the image and likeness of God as revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

And just as each person is formed uniquely, and yet still bears God’s image, so it is with Saints.

All Saints look like Christ, but there is a multiplicity of what Saints look like.

In other words, you can only be the Saint God makes you to be, and being a saint makes you more and more truly yourself, not a pale shadow or distortion of who you are, or imitation of anyone else, other than Christ.

But this isn’t just about personal improvement or a self-help programme.

Saints can’t make it without God’s grace; and they, we, can’t do it in splendid isolation.

The ravishing vision of the Book of Revelation conveys this so wonderfully.

St John the Divine, who was entrusted with this revelation to see and write down, describes the scene:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands (Revelation 7.9)

That is heaven.

And heaven is tasted on earth.

The vision of Revelation is a vision of the Church at worship in heaven: and the saints on earth anticipate the worship of heaven.

This is what the poet George Herbert describes in his poem ‘Prayer’:

Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,

Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,

Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest, (Prayer [1I])

In the Church’s banquet, the banquet of saints, we feast on ‘exalted Manna’ the supernatural bread and taste ‘heaven in ordinarie.’

Sunday by Sunday at the Eucharist – receiving ‘exalted manna’ - in this church, I see a vision of saints ‘from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb’ (Revelation 7.9.)

That is, to me, a vision of ‘heaven in ordinarie.’

I see the holy people of God, around the altar, being formed more deeply by the Holy Spirit to become the holy people of God, individually and corporately.

And that happens because we gather around the throne of the Lamb who was slain, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God and when share his life with the palm branches of martyrdom.

And the angels, who the scriptures show adoring God’s holy presence night and day, join this praise and connect us to the worship of heaven.

So let us ever join in the angelic song, with all the Saints:

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Revelation 7.12)