Every one of us, by the grace of God, can become a saint

Bishop Scott Bullock
Homily from the Solemnity of All Saints
November 1, 2024

Our faith tradition as Christians has always had a certain ambivalence, a certain unease with images going back to that moment when Moses comes down from the mountain and he proclaims one of the commandments,  “You shall have no false images before me.” And yet we have tenaciously, firmly held to the belief that we can put up our images of saints as a reminder of the Communion of the Saints because that’s not an image of God, of course. So it’s very much part of our Catholic sensibility that in a Catholic Church, like the one we’re sitting in now, we’ll see images of saints. Particularly in this one the saints which are lined up along the upper stained-glass windows are all friends of the blessed mother, our Blessed Mother Mary.  

They’ve got these places to remind us of two things. First of all, they’re with us. That we’re praying together with the Communion of the Saints. They’ve got some good seats up there. Secondly, they are our intercessors. That we can call upon them.

But this particular feast day, though it sounds like it might refer to them as a much broader sense of the saint, it’s all the saints. All the saints. The ones we know and the ones that are known only to God. 

How many are there? People have wondered. So, we’re given today, on this feast day of All Saints, that reading from the seventh chapter of the Book of Revelation that speaks of numbers. It says, “I heard a number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the Israelites.” 

It’s unbelievable how much analysis has gone into that number. One hundred forty-four thousand. Who are they? Is that the exact number of the saved? Well, it’s pretty clear it’s not because the writer of the work John’s specifies, these are from every tribe of the Israelites. And then the next part of our reading says, “and then I had a vision of a multitude even larger that no one could count.” 

So, it’s no time to try to specify the exact number in heaven. Instead, the message is trying to remind us that God desires a multitude to populate heaven. God desires all of us to be the saints. 

So, how is it that we become saints? Well, Jesus gives us his charter for holiness in today’s Gospel that we heard read by our deacon. These are the qualities that a saint or a holy person would exemplify. Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn and who are meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are those who are peacemakers. Blessed are those who know persecution. All those qualities are the experiences of those who aspire for holiness. 

So the question is can we be saints? Well of course we can. Why else would Jesus command us to do these things? Of course we can. God gives us all the things we need, he gives us the grace of the Sacraments. He gives us the Body of Christ, the Church, which helps us and guides us along our way. He gives us the intercession of the saints. Go for it. 

So, we’ve got all we need. I think that the question we want to ask ourselves on this Feast of All Saints, why aren’t we all saints? Why aren’t we there yet? And I think that we have to be honest, the reason that we’re not saints is because we don’t want to be. We don’t want to be. For example, when we’re called to be humble before others our heart says, “no thank you.” When we’re called to be peacemakers we say, “no I don’t want to do that quite yet because I’m right and they’re wrong.” Each of these decisions are choices we make against being saints. 

Nonetheless the good news, God is ready to help us become saints but it all boils down to our will in the end. God gives us what we need. We’ve got to want it. We’re going to want to be saints each day making choices according to what Jesus asks of us. 

Soin the end, our prayer on this Feast of All Saints, all these great examples to inspire us is — God give me that desire, because you’re going to give me the strength, the grace I need. Give me the desire to want it and then when each moment presents itself, we say, “Yes Lord I want to be a saint. You’ve given me what I need. I choose holiness.” And over the course of our lives, however short or long, we can be practiced in becoming saints. 

Lord, we see you’re pouring out your graces for us this evening in the Eucharist which we gather to share. Lord change our hearts. Make us desire to be like the saints who have gone ahead of us and when our will meets your grace the result is always holiness. Come Holy Spirit change our hearts so that we can be those who desire to be your saints.