Homily - Solemnity of All Saints, November 1, 2016 - 7p St.Kateri at St. Margaret Mary

Today's Readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110116.cfm

I haven’t had dinner yet, so I’ll make this quick.

My day job is in downtown Buffalo, and in the evening as I drive home from Buffalo, it’s hard to miss the giant Powerball billboard just north of I-190.  They keep that billboard updated every day with the current Powerball jackpot.  $198 million, it said last evening.  198 million dollars if you pony up for a ticket and you’re the only one with the winning combination of numbers. 

Now of course you don’t get that much.  If you take it in a lump sum, you forego about a third, and you’re down to $130 million.  Then there are state and federal taxes, which will take almost half of it, leaving you with a paltry $71 and a half million.  Hardly enough to live on!

But can you imagine the good fortune, the incredible luck, of winning that much money?  What would you do with it?

This is what came to mind as I was thinking on the meaning of this solemnity, this feast.  For as much money as 71-and-a-half million dollars is, those women and men who have gone before us and whom we celebrate as saints in heaven have won a prize far greater, far more valuable than any Powerball jackpot, huh?  They’ve won the crown of eternal life, eternal peace, eternal joy, eternal love in the presence of God, standing before the throne of God, gazing on the face of God!

We gather this evening to celebrate their incredible good fortune, to celebrate the lives they’ve led, the example they are to us in the struggles of our lives, the help they provide us by their intercession in our struggles.

But we’re tempted, aren’t we, to think of this day as a feast for them, for those really good people, incredibly better people!  Indeed, we do celebrate today the named saints, those great women and men whose holiness, and courage, and faithfulness have been formally recognized by Holy Mother Church. 

But we also celebrate the host of unnamed men and women who’ve lived quiet lives of holiness, selflessness, and faithfulness to the end, those who’ve died in Christ and now live with Him.  We can be confident that many of the people we knew, who’ve gone before us, are counted among the saints.

But this Feast is not only for them. I think the message for this day is that you and I, brothers and sisters, <pause> are called to join them.  You, and I, are called to be saints.  In fact, if you think about it, that’s really the only thing worth living for.  You. Me. Saints.

Now most people would scoff at such a notion.  Me, a saint?  You’re joking.  You don’t know me very well, do you? You have no idea what I’ve done, all the things I wish I could do over, all the mistakes I’ve made, the sins I’ve committed.

But here’s the thing – with the exception of Saint Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, every single one of the saints we celebrate today - was a sinner.  Not all were horrific sinners, but some of them terrible sinners.  Thieves.  Adulterers and prostitutes. Murderers, even.

But every saint has one thing in common – each accepted the salvation freely offered by Our Blessed Lord, by His cross and resurrection, by the Blood of the Lamb, and each became a new person.  A new creation as St. Paul, himself a great sinner, wrote.  Saint Augustine, a renowned sinner who is now honored as one of our greatest saints, once said “there is no saint without a past, and no sinner without a future.”

Some, like Paul and Augustine, had dramatic conversion stories, but most a lifelong process of surrender, of turning from sin, seeking His forgiveness, letting Him take possession of their hearts. Living lives of ever-increasing faithfulness. And letting Christ work His amazing work through them.

So the message I hope you’ll take home and take to heart is this – you, and I – each of us – should embrace our call to be saints.  In the words of EWTN host Patrick Coffin:  “Be a saint. What else is there?”

And unlike Powerball, where the odds of winning are about one in 292 million, becoming a saint, something infinitely more valuable and eternally more lasting, is being offered to us as a gift.  If only we accept the gift, repent of our sins, and surrender our lives to Him so that He can work His grace, and mercy, His beatitudes through us. 

Then we have His assurance, His promise, Him who died to save us, that He will cleanse us and gather us on the last day and present us as His pure and spotless gift to His Father. To live forever in the joyful embrace of God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.