Dear ones. Happy Feast of All Saints. In school or by a family member, you may have been asked,
“what do you want to be when you grow up?” If I asked every individual here, I bet I’d hear a whole host of
answers. Some of you might say that when you grow up, you want to be a
professional athlete or a teacher, a doctor or nurse or veterinarian, an actor
or musician or artist, perhaps a soldier or police officer or fire fighter. At
different times in my life I too considered different professions: there was a
time I wanted to be an archaeologist and uncover ancient cities, later I wanted
to be a mathematician. It wasn’t until I was a little older, in college, that I
discerned that God was calling me to be a priest.
Well, no
matter the profession, I bet every single one of us could answer that question,
“when I grow up, I want to be happy. I want to do something that makes me
happy.” No one wants to grow up to be unhappy or bored.
Well, what
if I told you that being happy in life, being fulfilled, is not simply the
result of your job or profession. Being happy isn’t based on the amount of
money you make, the amount of power or responsibility you have, it’s not based
on how popular or famous you become.
The key to
happiness is to discover and pursue the reason God made you. Why are you here.
Why do you exist? Why were you born, not 700 years ago, not 200 years ago, but
now?
And the
answer to those questions is partially hidden—it takes a while to figure out
what we should be doing with our time, with our abilities. But the answer is
also partially known. As Christians, we know what we should be doing with our
time. We should be trying to become like the people we celebrate today. The
saints. Because we, like them, are made by God, to become as holy as we
possibly can.
If you want
to be happy, if you want to be fulfilled, you should do everything you can to
be a saint. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a musician or a doctor or a
construction worker. St. Cecilia was a musician. Saints Cosmos and Damien were
doctors. St. Francis of Assisi was a builder, he built a chapel for God, St.
Luke was an artist. St. Sebastian was an athlete. St. John Bosco was a juggler
and magician. St. Catherine was a philosopher. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was a
teacher. There were Saints who were simply moms and dad who loved their kids.
And saints who were politicians, even kings and queens of nations.
But choosing
to be a saint is more important than choosing your profession. It’s more
important than where you live, what language you speak, where you go to school.
There have been saints that have done very well in school, and saints that had
a very difficult time with their studies. But what was most important is that they aimed
at being saints, no matter what they did. Whether they were plowing their
fields like st. Isidore, or engaging in priestly duties like St. John Vianney, or
a missionary like St. Paul, a website designer like St. Carlo Acutis.
Seeking to
become a saint is the most important thing we can do in this life. For in the
Gospel today, did Jesus say blessed are you when you win trophies for your
athletic accomplishments? No. Did he say, blessed are you when you are
well-known in your professional field? No. Did he say, blessed are you if you
have more friends, more money than other people? No.
What did he
say? Blessed are you when you are merciful, blessed are you when you are pure
of heart. Blessed are you when you seek to be righteous so much that you hunger
and thirst for it.
One of the
great tragedies of our time is that there are many people who do not consider
their call to be a saint. There are a great number of people who have turned
their backs on God and will fail to become the person God made them to be. And
because they have turned their backs on God they are miserable and causing
great problems in the world, for their family and countries.
Don’t be
like them. Don’t get so swept up by the world that you begin to forget about
God, about why God made you.
We celebrate
the saints because they are our heroes in the faith, but they also show us what
all humans are capable of when they trust in God, when they say yes to God with
every ounce of their being. God made us not to be selfish, lazy, or fearful. He
made us to have generous hearts, active hearts, courageous hearts in knowing,
loving, and serving Him in this life, so that we can be happy with Him for
eternity.
The Saints
challenges us to aim higher—to aim higher than spiritual mediocrity, and the
idiotic examples of celebrities.
God made us
to be saints. And today, we ask the saints of heaven to help us become like
them, to love Jesus more than anyone or anything. We look to their example, and
seek their prayers, that we may become the saints that God made us to be for
the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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