Gospel & Reflection for the Feast of All Saints

In October of 1967, six months before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr spoke to a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia. During his speech to them, he asked them what their life’s blueprint would be? He called on them to aspire to be the best that they could be and regardless of what they would end up doing, for them to be the best at what they do. He said to them:

“If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music… Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and earth will have to pause and say: ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.’”

Those words echo a deeply Catholic truth, appropriate for the Feast of All Saints which we celebrate this weekend. In them, we have a blueprint to living a saintly life, the life that God calls us all to live. In everything, faith, and life, we are called to be the best that we can be – we are called to be Saints.

Often, when we think of such a challenge, we feel immediately that that is impossible – we can never be as the great Saints were and are. But that is not true. What should inspire us most about Saints, all those men, women and children of every time and age, is that none of them were born Saints; they did not naturally have a halo above their head. They were as human as you and I. But they became Saints by being the best that they could be by following the example Christ gave.

Just think of the diversity of our Saints, their humanity, their flaws, their strengths, and still all of them found a path to God, they found their ‘street’ to holiness. We have St. Peter, who was impulsive, dramatic, but cowardly. But we also had St. John who was quiet, reflective, and truly devoted. We had St. Thomas Aquinas, a towering intellectual, but also St. John Vianney, humble, small, and who barely got through his exams in Seminary. We had soldiers like St. Ignatius of Loyola, Joan of Arc who led armies into battle, and still we had St. Francis who would not hurt a fly, and St. John of the Cross, poetic and artistic. We had the serious St. Jerome but there is St. Philip Neri, who spirituality was based on laughter. We had converts like Edith Stein, mothers like St. Monica and St. Gianna Beretta Molla, fathers like St. Thomas More, children like St. Maria Goretti, and teenagers like St. Carlo Acutis.

Together, the Saints show us that they are God’s masterpieces, but that God never tires of painting them in different colours and styles. Each were unique and each had a distinctive holiness and path to God.

In our Gospel for this weekend, Jesus delivers the blueprint for this holiness: the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes paint a portrait of Christ and the life of holiness and faithfulness to God that He lived. However, the Beatitudes should be our portrait too. They are not a list of high-minded, unreachable ideals meant only for a select few to master. They remind us of our call to forsake everything for God; if we can follow them, then we find holiness, we find the path to Sainthood.

So, friends, when we, despite everything, still find a way to trust in God’s providence, the Kingdom of Heaven is ours because we are thirsting for it – we are sweeping our street like Michelangelo painted pictures. When we sit quietly with someone who is grieving or in need of a listening ear or any support, we are being gentle – we are composing a masterpiece of mercy. When we refuse to engage in anything negative or when we choose to forgive, we are then peacemakers – we are writing poetry with our choices.

So, friends, as we look to the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, let us remember that the world does not need a copy of St. Peter or St. Monica. The world needs you and I—living, loving, and shining in the exact place where God has placed us. Let us embrace the blueprint of the Beatitudes and create our own unique masterpiece of holiness.

Heaven is waiting, it is paused to see the Saint that we all can be; the Saint we are called to be.

Fr. Richard