Homily: All Saints 2016 - "The only real sadness in life..."

As a student at Corpus Christi Academy, or in your youth, you may have been asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” If I were to ask the young people in our congregation here today, I’d bet I’d come up with a whole host of answers: a professional athlete, an astronaut, a doctor, a truck driver, a professional dancer, artists, musician, a soldier; perhaps one or two might be thinking of being a priest or a nun.

 No matter the profession, I bet every single one of us could answer that question, “when I grow up, I want to be happy.” No one wants to grow up to be sad or bored.

There are a lot of things that may cause us unhappiness, sadness in life: not becoming as successful as we thought we should, not having the house or car or job that we thought we should, perhaps losing a loved one before we were ready. It was the French philosopher Leon Bloy who said, “There is really only one sadness in life, not to be a saint.” For if each of us have been made by God to become holy, to be a saint, the only real sadness, is to not become the person God made us to be, happy with him in heaven for eternity.

If you had to choose between all of the material wealth, power, and fame the world could give you and being a saint, if you choose anything but becoming a saint, you’ve chosen wrong.

The saints show us what it means to be truly alive. Life is not meant to be all about the pursuit of material things, earthly things, but spiritual things, heavenly things.

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. The beatitudes are the key to true human flourishing and true human happiness.

And today we celebrate those individuals who got that. The saints looked around and saw that when people center their lives on things other than God, the ungodly were the truly unhappy ones.

Look at the joy of saint francis, saint mother Theresa, saint clare, saint therese, do you want that joy? If so, become like them. Most of the time, we spend our efforts pursuing trivial things, which do not bring us the happiness, the joy that God offers us in the life of holiness. It might even be something the world considers very important, like becoming the president of the United States. But if you become president, but do not become a saint, you chose wrong.

What does it mean to become a saint? To become a true friend of Christ—allowing Jesus Christ to live his life in you. St. Paul said, “it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me.” To be a saint is to invite Jesus into every dimension of your life, and allow him to reign. To put on the mind of Christ, to put on the attitude of Christ, to put on the heart of Christ in all things. And the saints are celebrated for doing just that.

Each of the saints has an interesting story. It is interesting to hear how Saint Francis would preach to the animals, or how Saint Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, or how the Devil would appear to St. John Vianney trying to scare him, or how St. Sebastian was shot with arrows and still survived, or how St. Theresa of Avila would levitate when she prayed. But behind every saint is that great desire to know Jesus and to love him with their whole heart. And that’s what we need to emulate.

Don’t get swept up with all of the distractions are world gives us. Being a saint means saying “no” to a lot of things—things which seek to ruin our friendship with Jesus, things that seek to corrupt our minds, sour our hearts. But we say “no” to the things of the world, because of our great desire to say “yes” to God with all of our being.

We all of us today recognize our own call to become saints, and come to thank God for this great cloud of witnesses who teach us what it really means to be Christian, what it really means to be human, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.