I’m reminded today of the story of a parishioner who commented to the pastor about the church’s diminishing congregation: “not many in church today” he said; the pastor replied “You are wrong, my friend. There were thousands at church this morning. Thousands and thousands and tens of thousands.” Imagine if you will, all those who have been part of the community of St. Matthias, those of us who are here today and those who are now in the full awareness of the presence of God. We are all here together this morning, those we can see and those who are no longer physically visible to us but still fully present. This is the doctrine of the Communion of Saints which we celebrate today. Every human, alive or dead, faithful or scoundrel, who is bound together in Jesus Christ is a saint, and all of us are intrinsically bound together. 

There are particular people who are formally recognized as saints by the church, not because they are super mortals but because over their lifetimes, they demonstrated what it can look like when our passions and longings are invigorated by the fire of divine love. These saints are not people who shed their humanity but just the opposite, they have learned what it is to live more truly human, how to be more alive and more awake and more their truest selves.  

The saints, then, are immersed in life. And this is especially true with those no longer with us. When we pray, we pray with all the saints, every grandmother and every child and every martyr and every crotchety neighbor, who has ever been united by the Spirit into this grand, mysterious, never-ending dance of God’s love and Divine presence. 

When churches had their own graveyards and families attended the same church for generations, people would walk, every Sunday past the graves of family and friends and be reminded of those who had lived their faith and gone on ahead of them. 

On this Feast of All Saints, we consider the hope that God’s promise of eternal life holds for us. The theologian Ronald Rolheiser describes it like this: 

“As Christians, we believe that the dead are still alive, still themselves, and very importantly, still in a living, conscious, and loving relationship with us and with each other. After death, we live on, in communication with others who have died before us, in communication with those we left behind on earth, and in communion with the Divine itself. This is the Christian doctrine of the Communion of Saints”.  

The Celtic tradition teaches that the veil between heaven and earth is very thin and those of us that have seen our beloveds pass from this life into the next understand this intuitively. Heaven begins here on earth, here and now in whatever blessed and challenging circumstances we find ourselves. We who are still on our earthly pilgrimage struggle because we know the incompleteness, the flawed nature of this reality, while we find hope in the unearned joys that are also part of our journey: our relationships, the wonder and joy of nature, the blessings of the arts, and the diversity of culture and humanity that this planet holds. We who are Christians experience it intimately in our common life of prayer and service to others. 

The theme of a gathering of hope runs through all three of today’s readings, pointing to a life after death that is very different from life before death and gives us hope for the future.  

During this time of turbulence in the world, our collective consciousness is being raised about injustices in the world, the urgent need to address climate change, and of course we are watching and praying for the mid-term elections in the United States tomorrow which will have an impact on the whole world, and particularly on us here in Canada. 

Today we focus our attention on that great cloud of witnesses: the Communion of Saints. We all know saintly people: people who have already crossed over into eternal life, and many here in our own parish community that we know to be saintly people. We are all called to sainthood, though not all are called to great achievement. Sainthood is mostly lived out in daily, ordinary ways: in small acts of love and kindness, in generosity, forgiveness and patience. In being attentive to the needs of those around us. In doing what we can, however small our efforts seem. 

Today’s gospel spells out what it takes to be a saint: to live fully as a human being with all of its complexity. Sainthood is not just for the chosen or the perfect. In fact, it is well known that many of the saints were not easy to get along with, so intent were they on living the mission of Jesus as described by the Beatitudes, and most saints are anonymous, quietly living out their lives in faith without any notoriety. Our patron, St. Matthias had an interesting role. Chosen by God through the apostles to replace Judas Iscariot. His calling as an apostle is unique in that it was not given by Jesus himself, but came after the death of Jesus, and there is no mention of him among the lists of disciples or followers of Jesus in the three synoptic Gospels. The tradition of the Greeks says that Matthias was what we would call a church planter, developing faith communities around Cappadocia and on the coast of the Caspian Sea.  

The good news for today is that we are all intended for sainthood, and this is where the path is taking us.  I always like to quote Rabbi Joshua Ben Levi on this wonderful feast day who said, “As we go about our daily lives, we should imagine a procession of angels going before us proclaiming “Make Way for the Image of God”.  This is who we are, this is who we all are:  souls still on the journey, everyday saints living among us, and saints already enjoying eternal life with God. Amen.

 

 

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