Bishop’s Letter: Saints help us nourish the desire for holiness

Share
Oct 31, 2024

Beloved:

We are the people who long to see the face of God. He calls us His beloved, for we know in the depth of our soul this matchless love which God, throughout all eternity — now and forever — bestows upon us. He calls us His children.

Yes, God knows of our sinfulness, and He seeks us, no matter the time of day, to draw near to Him. He longs for us, fulfilled within His majestic hope, and prays that we will come to Him; to trust that He will carry us through our human failings and difficulties. For it is God who grants us our rest.

On this holy day, God reminds us of people like us who stumbled and fell victim to earthly pleasures and then returned wholeheartedly to God. We are reminded of our eternal call to holiness by those whose incredible fortitude led them to believe in and proclaim God even when friends, governments, or families dictated they deny God. God gives us these people, these Saints, so that we find the courage to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. In the lives of the Saints, there was a constant conversion toward God; the journey to sainthood is a lifetime of prayer immersed in divine love – that service to one another becomes natural to who we profess to be — children of God!

The call to holiness is both a gift from God and a journey to be made together with our brothers and sisters and all the saints who are companions along the way. There is no discrimination against those who are named saints. Sainthood is not relegated to the rich only, or to clergy or religious sisters, or mothers, fathers, but sainthood is the destiny of those who believe in our triune God and follow God all the days of their life. As the Book of Revelations tells us, saints in heaven include people from all nations and backgrounds, united in their worship of God, remaining faithful to God despite outside pressures and concerns. The Book of Revelations Chapter 7 also tells us that while in heaven, the saints do not rest on their laurels and expect to be served. Rather, this great multitude of saints continually worship God, acclaiming: “Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” In heaven, then, they are our example for we are called to worship and praise God, with the beat of the natural heart in all that we think, say, and do.

Jesus tells us what we must do to become saints. He blesses us with the Beatitudes, helping us to understand that we are to honor God by living as Jesus shows us; be merciful, offer God’s peace to one another, advocate for the lowly, seek righteousness, be countercultural and willing to accept the consequences in the holy name of God.

As we praise God for the saints who guide us to His way, we also commemorate the faithful departed; those people whom we have known personally while living on this earth who guided us to draw near to God; who taught us the love of God by their offering to each one they encountered. They are the ones who brought us the grace of the Sacraments; who taught us how to show mercy and be a peacemaker; they are the ones who enfolded us with the embrace of God’s love as we prepared for a test, or felt uncertain, or exposed our failing. Their example led us to feed the hungry and to minister to those who fall ill. They carry us when we can no longer manage the burden. In their dying, we are given comfort and hope because Jesus conquered ‘earthly’ death. We commemorate them particularly for we know they will arise with God in the heavens; standing in worship as saints. Our Holy Father remarked that these are the people who bring God’s hope: “our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people – often forgotten people – who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines nor on the grand catwalks of the latest show, but who without any doubt are in these very days writing the decisive events of our time.”

Pope Francis said, “Brothers and sisters, the memory of the saints leads us to raise our eyes to Heaven: not to forget the realities of the earth, but to face them with greater courage, with more hope. May our Blessed Mother Mary, the Queen of All Saints, help us nourish the desire for holiness, walking the way of the Beatitudes.”