Thursday, November 1, 2012

Daily Mass Homily: November 1st, 2012 (Solemnity of All Saints)


            Happy feast day to you all!  Today we celebrate All Saints—those who are with God in heaven and inspire us in our faith.
            When we think of saints we often consider those who have been canonized—St. John the Evangelist and St. Joseph, after whom our parishes our named, and many more.  These are the men and women whom the Church has declared to be in heaven and we can know this 100%.
            But we don’t just celebrate the canonized saints today.  We give thanks for all the men and women who have gone before us that we trust are also with God in heaven.  This morning I was visiting the kindergarten class and one of the girls said something cute and profound at the same time.  Sadly, this little one lost her mom last spring to cancer.  She said, “It’s my mom’s feast day today because she is with Jesus in heaven!”  That’s what this day is all about.
The first person I think of as a saint in this regard is my Grandma.  My Grandma Betty was the best.  She made the best cookies, fed us meat and potatoes and gave us Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a cereal that my health teacher parents didn’t have in our own house.  More importantly she inspired me in the faith, particularly in the Rosary.  As a young boy she taught me this necklace was actually used to pray and I’ll never forget her telling me the Rosary was one Our Father and ten Hail Mary’s that we pray as Catholics.  Later in life, praying the Rosary with my Grandma provided one of the most inspiring moments of my life.
I was visiting Grandma a couple of days before her death.  My friend and I were praying the Rosary and Grandma simply held the beads, unable even to finger along.  She was incoherent and hadn’t eaten or really moved in a day.  I’ll never forget what happened in the middle of this Rosary.  She lifted up her head, the light came back in her eyes and she told me, “Jesus loves you.”  These were her last words to me and for all I know her last words spoken.
We celebrate the lives of countless men and women who have gone before us that have taught and inspired us in our faith, careers and families.  God calls us to follow their lead and we do our best to live up to those who go before us.  In this same classroom this morning I asked the kids, “Who here wants to go to heaven?”  Most of the kids raised their hands, except for one of the boys.  I asked him, “You don’t want to go to heaven?”  “No,” he answered.  The other kids started saying, “I can’t wait to see Grandma/Auntie, etc.”  Then this little boy said.  “I changed my mind.  I want to go to heaven to see my Grandma too.”
God calls us all to be saints.  Today we celebrate all the saints—those canonized by the Church and those men and women who we pray and trust are with God in heaven.  They are with us here today at Mass and for that we are grateful on this wonderful feast.

No comments:

Post a Comment