20171101
BEING AND BECOMING SAINTS
Readings
at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: White.
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First reading
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Apocalypse 7:2-4,9-14 ©
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I, John, saw another angel rising where the sun rises, carrying
the seal of the living God; he called in a powerful voice to the four angels
whose duty was to devastate land and sea, ‘Wait before you do any damage on
land or at sea or to the trees, until we have put the seal on the foreheads of
the servants of our God.’ Then I heard how many were sealed: a hundred and
forty-four thousand, out of all the tribes of Israel.
After that I
saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race,
tribe and language; they were standing in front of the throne and in front of
the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands. They shouted
aloud, ‘Victory to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all
the angels who were standing in a circle round the throne, surrounding the
elders and the four animals, prostrated themselves before the throne, and
touched the ground with their foreheads, worshipping God with these words,
‘Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and
strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen.’
One of the
elders then spoke, and asked me, ‘Do you know who these people are, dressed in
white robes, and where they have come from?’ I answered him, ‘You can tell me,
my lord.’ Then he said, ‘These are the people who have been through the great
persecution, and they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the
Lamb.’
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 23(24):1-6 ©
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Such are the men who seek your face, O Lord.
The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness,
the world and all its peoples.
It is he who set it on the seas;
on the waters he made it firm.
Such are the men who seek your face, O Lord.
Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord?
Who shall stand in his holy place?
The man with clean hands and pure heart,
who desires not worthless things.
Such are the men who seek your face, O Lord.
He shall receive blessings from the Lord
and reward from the God who saves him.
Such are the men who seek him,
seek the face of the God of Jacob.
Such are the men who seek your face, O Lord.
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Second reading
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1 John 3:1-3 ©
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Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us,
by letting us be called God’s children;
and that is what we are.
Because the world refused to acknowledge him,
therefore it does not acknowledge us.
My dear people, we are already the children of God
but what we are to be in the future has not yet been
revealed;
all we know is, that when it is revealed
we shall be like him
because we shall see him as he really is.
Surely everyone who entertains this hope
must purify himself, must try to be as pure as Christ.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Mt11:28
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened
and I will give you rest, says the Lord.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Matthew 5:1-12a ©
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How happy are the poor in spirit
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Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up the hill. There he sat down and
was joined by his disciples. Then he began to speak. This is what he taught
them:
‘How happy are the poor in spirit;
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Happy the gentle:
they shall have the earth for their heritage.
Happy those who mourn:
they shall be comforted.
Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right:
they shall be satisfied.
Happy the merciful:
they shall have mercy shown them.
Happy the pure in heart:
they shall see God.
Happy the peacemakers:
they shall be called sons of God.
Happy those who are persecuted in the cause of right:
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak
all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your
reward will be great in heaven.’
BEING AND BECOMING SAINTS
“Do you know
who these people are, dressed in white robes, and where they have come from?” (Apoc 7:13).
This question demands an answer from each one of us. Because the answer
that we give indicates how we understand ourselves, our origin and destiny in
life. And unless we know, the celebration of All Saints Day will have no
relevance in our lives.
Now if I ask ‘who
are the saints’, the answer that most people would give is that they are
those who have lived their lives in such a way that they have arrived at
sainthood. And this means that we are all in the process of
becoming saints. All Saints Day therefore is a celebration not only
of those who have become saints but all of us who will become saints at the end
of our journey. However, such an answer is only partially correct.
It starts with the fact that we believe that we are sinners even before we were
born. Now this is not really true, and even contradicts scripture.
St John tells
us that we are already the children of God because of His love that He lavished
on us.
Regardless of the fact that we are baptized or not, it would not be really
wrong even to say that all of us are God’s children by the mere fact of our
coming into existence in this world. After all, do we not believe that
God is the Father of all humankind and not just Christians? To be
born into the world means that we share in the very being and love of God.
This is implied also in the answer given by one of the elders to the question
that I quoted from Apocalypse at the beginning of this homily. He said,
“These are people who have been through the great persecution, and they have
washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb.” Now, how
can they wash their robes white again unless their robes were white
before? Unless you narrowly interprete these texts as referring to those
who were baptized. If that were so, then it means to say that the unbaptized
cannot be saved. But this would not be in harmony with what the Church
has taught us with regard to the salvation of the unbaptized.
However, one
might raise the problem of original sin. Isn’t it true that the Church
teaches that we are all born with original sin? This is undeniably
true both theologically and existentially. It is our own experience that
everyone of us shares the sinful nature of Adam and are under the influence of
the situation of sin in the world when we are born. But let us also not
forget that corollary to the doctrine of original sin, there is the doctrine of
original justice. What the Church wants to say also is that even before
we were born, God has in His eternal plan meant for us to be saints. In
other words, our original nature before we were born is already saintly.
But somehow things have gone wrong from the very beginning. In other
words, all of us have had a bad start.
What are the
implications that we can draw from this premise. Firstly, the
fact is that we are already saints even before we came into the world. The
problem is that from the moment we were born, we forget that we are actually
saints. We have forgotten about our real nature, namely, our
sainthood. This, then, is the difference between the baptized and the
unbaptized. The baptized understands and knows that their real nature is
their sainthood, whereas those who are unbaptized do not know. In the
words of John, the unbaptized are those in the world who refuse to acknowledge
God as their Father.
Secondly,
since we are already saints, since our very being is already sainthood, it
means to say that in history, our sainthood is coming to be. That is to say that
in history, the saint in us is being unfolded concretely. It is in
history that we work out and manifest the sainthood in us. We are just
like the seed that already contains the tree in us. And the tree is
nothing else but the externalization of the seed. Unfortunately, due to
our fallen nature and our forgetfulness of our nature as saints, we live
unsaintly lives, contradicting our very being.
For this very
reason, Jesus, who is the true God and true man, offers us His
blueprint on how we can recover our essential nature, which is to be both
divine and human like Him, although differing ontologically. In fact, this
is what John said: “we are already the children of God, but what we are
to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is
revealed we shall be like him.” And what is His blueprint for
us? It is spelt out in the beatitudes. It is His program of life
and for life. The beatitudes help us to form a vision of life that is a
Godly vision. They are meant to help us to see ourselves, others, success
and sufferings in the right perspective. They will be the ways in
which we will purify ourselves to be like Christ, as John tells us; and the way
in which our tainted robes can be washed clean. They are the necessary
stages and process to help us to return home, namely, to our original nature even
before we were born.
However, it
is not enough to say that we were already saints before we were born.
To be purified does not mean simply to return to square one. In that
sense, we must also maintain that while it is true that our very being is
saintly, and that we need to realize that sainthood in history, we must also in
the same vein say that we can become saints. In other words, we can
become more than what we originally were. In this sense, we are all
becoming saints. Sainthood, like love, can grow. To become saints
is similar to growing in love. We cannot say that our love is no longer
capable of growing at any point of time; so likewise in our sainthood. We
can become more and more like God. And this would be an endless process and
journey. But this journey of becoming more and more saintly is not a
frustrating process because it is not an implication that we are lacking
fulfillment but simply pointing out the fact that we are capable of being
enriched further and move on to a higher plane of life and love in God.
Yes, as we
celebrate the Feast of All Saints, let us remember that we are
celebrating the fact that we are already saints and that we are historically
living out this sainthood on earth. But more importantly, we are
also celebrating the hope and the reality that we are called to greater heights
in saintliness, by joining the communion of saints in fellowship and love which
will lead us to ever greater and more enriching love now and for all
eternity. Finally, it means that in love and fellowship, we truly become
more and more in God, who ultimately is the one who can sustain and
fulfill us completely.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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