20231101 BEING AND BECOMING SAINTS
01 November 2023, Wednesday, All Saints
First reading |
Apocalypse 7:2-4,9-14 © |
I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language
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.’
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 23(24):1-6 © |
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.
Second reading | 1 John 3:1-3 © |
We shall be like God because we shall see him as he really is
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.
Gospel Acclamation | Mt11:28 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened
and I will give you rest, says the Lord.
Alleluia!
Gospel | Matthew 5:1-12a © |
How happy are the poor in spirit
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
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [REV 7:2-4, 9-14; JN 3:1-3; MT 5:1-12]
“Do you know who these people are, dressed in white robes, and where they have come from?” (Rev 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 interpret 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 had 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 forgot 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 fulfilment 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 fulfil us completely.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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