Sunday Mass for the Solemnity of All Saints 2020 - Year A

Join the Jesuit Institute South Africa as they celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints.
This morning's Mass is celebrated by Fr Anthony Egan SJ.

You might want to light a candle, or do something to make this a prayerful time for you all. Our readings for this Mass are:

First Reading Revelation 7:2–4, 9–14
Response Psalm 24:6
Psalm Psalm 24:1b–4b, 5–6
Second Reading 1 John 3:1–3
Gospel Acclamation Matthew 11:28
Gospel Matthew 5:1–12a

Homily (begins at 9:25)

Many years ago while studying in Britain I attended a memorial service at St Martin’s in the Field in London to honour the memory of the South African political activist Helen Joseph, who had died on Christmas Day 1992. In her life this committed Anglican layperson – she was admitted to the Order of Simon of Cyrene, the highest lay honour the Anglican Church in Southern Africa bestows on its members, earlier in 1992 – had been deeply involved in the struggle against apartheid within the labour unions, the women’s movement and the Congress of Democrats. She’d been charged with treason (and acquitted), banned for many years from public life, often harassed by the security services.
As the service – attended by Brits and South Africans, liberals, communists and Christians alike – came to an end we all joined in and sang a song written by the English Puritan writer John Bunyan. (He of The Pilgrim’s Progress fame). To sing it to you would be cruel and unnatural punishment, so I shall simply quote the opening verse: He who would valiant be 'gainst all disaster...
This classic hymn – so appropriate, despite archaisms and non-inclusive language, to celebrate a woman of courage strengthened by her Christian faith – offers us an image of heroic sanctity, the pilgrim journey from the ordinary to union with God. Or what we might call the journey to sainthood.
As we celebrate today All Saints (and tomorrow All Souls), we celebrate the ‘cloud of witnesses’, formally and informally recognised by the Church, who have born witness to Christ in their lives, who have despite faults and failings, some of them many, tried to live in particular Christ’s beatitudes.
What is a saint? There is a technical definition and a more general one. Both are valid; both speak to us today. First, there are those whom the Church formally declares, after a close examination of their lives, to be saints. Through a quite long and complex process in stages – using terms Servant of God, Blessed and then Saint – Rome examines their lives thoroughly, also investigating claims that a certain number of miracles have been attained through their intercession, before declaring them saints. This is not to claim they were sinless. And it certainly does not claim they are worthy of being worshipped. Only God is worshipped! What this means is that the Church claims reasonable grounds to believe that said persons are in union with God. Because they have been valiant “ ’gainst all disaster”, if I may quote Bunyan.
This leads us to a more general understanding of saints – all those who are united with God in heaven. Their status as saints we may never know, least of all being acknowledged as such by the Church. Not that this matters to God, who, contrary to what some of us might like to imagine, is not bound to obey the Church. In many cases there are those who are recognised as saints by their communities long before the cumbersome Church process is completed: many around the world acknowledged Saint Romero of the Americas long before Oscar’s formal canonisation in 2018. And because (so far as I know) only the Catholic and Orthodox churches have a formal process of canonisation, many others – like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King – are not officially called saints.
But why should we celebrate the saints? Let’s go back to the book of Revelation’s intent. The author, Saint John or one of his followers, was writing to keep up the spirits of oppressed Christians “’gainst all disaster”. His vision of the saints is a reminder to them that just as these folk withstood discouragement and persecution, so could they. The “huge number, impossible to count” are examples, just as all saints should be to us. They call us to our true selves. Our calling, our ultimate destination, is union with God. Despite our faults and failings, insofar as we live out the beatitudes we strive to true holiness, true sanctity. The cloud of witnesses, whether we know them as saints or not, stand with us in solidarity, inspire us by their lives, and cheer us on to victory.

You can listen to this homily at
https://www.jesuitinstitute.org.za/sunday-reflections/reflection-for-all-saints/

or download it to read here,
https://www.jesuitinstitute.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Homily-for-All-Saints.pdf