Homily given on 1st November 2022 - the Solemnity of All Saints, at St Thomas' Church, Jersey. Readings: Apocalypse 7:2-4,9-14, 1 John 3:1-3, and Matthew 5:1-12.
When I lived in Rome, I used to go to Mass in a Church around the corner from the Seminary, Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, the Church of the Most Holy Trinity of the Pilgrims. For about a year when I went to that Church, there was a young man sitting on the steps with a sweet but slightly mangy looking bull terrier dog. The man was homeless, and had a little cap full of coins in front of him, but never begged from any of us who came and went from the Church; he sat, and called out a cheerful Buongiorno! as we went in and as we left the Church. You would often see him sweeping the steps and the street outside the Church, and on one occasion I'm told the priests found him inside the Church trying to fix the floor.
The man’s name was Gaetano, he had a problem with drugs, and last year he died. One of the priests from the Church went to visit him a few times in the hospital, and gave him the last rites before he died. The Parish put money together for his funeral, and celebrated a full Solemn High Mass for him in the church with every dignity they could offer to this poor soul.
The priest who visited him, Fr Pavesi, preached at his funeral, (linked) and made note of one of Gaetano’s habits;
"every day he would enter the church, pay his greetings to all the saints, and then when he approached the High Altar, he would prostrate himself on the floor, kiss the ground and pray… I always thought that the Lord would save him for this act of piety, done with such sincerity."
Fr Pavesi mentioned that, without knowing it, this Poveraccio of Rome was following the advice of Saint Philip Neri, the Saint called the second Apostle of Rome, who wrote;
When you have little time or you cannot pray well, enter a church and greet all the saints. You will have prayed very well
My mum told me that when she was a teenager she often got bored of Church; why, she asked, were the priests always going on about Saints? People are starving, they are in danger from war and persecution, and all dear old Canon wants to talk about is St Therese of Lisieux! She told me she found the whole experience pointless. A feast like today, the Solemnity of All the Saints, must have seemed to her a worthless indulgence! So why do we Catholics bother with Saints? Why do we celebrate them? Why do we talk about them so much? Surely, some might say, all we need is Jesus?
The Saints are for us a visible reminder of what we are, and what we are called to be: the Church, here and now, is united invisibly to the Communion of the Blessed, that band gathered around the throne of the lamb we read about in our First Reading from the Apocalypse. They are united to us in prayer, and we are united to them through our Baptism in Christ. They pray for us, and we ask for their prayers. The Saints are a reminder that ordinary men and women, with the help of God’s grace and a willingness to let that Grace move them, can move mountains. They remind us that ordinary men and women can become reflections in the world of God’s goodness, of his love, his mercy, his power, and even his justice.
The Saints are the most diverse group you could ever meet; they come from every nation and every class, they are male and female, they are rich and poor, they are young and old. Some of them were so intelligent they revolutionised theology and philosophy and literature and science in their day, others couldn’t even read or write their own names. They are priests, and bishops, and nuns and religious, and husbands and wives, they are kings and queens, and beggars who lived on the street, and everything in between. They are an example to us of how to live good and holy lives. They are examples from every culture and every walk of life of men and women who loved God and their neighbour so passionately and so deeply that they could move mountains.
They are a reminder to us of a deep truth; each and every one of us is called to be holy. Each and every one of us is called to be a saint like them. They are examples to show us how in our own lives and in our own way, we can answer that call. How we can answer the challenge of holiness Jesus lays out in the Beatitudes in our Gospel reading. They are an example that draws us out of ourselves and into a true imitation of Jesus.
But they are more than an example; they are our spiritual friends and companions. We can speak to them, we can touch their relics, we can ask for their prayers and know with certainty that they are praying for us and with us.
Speaking of Relics you might notice that tonight, on our altar, we have placed some of the Relics of the Saints given to this Church. We have done this tonight, just as Catholics have done for centuries, as a reminder. As a reminder of the first Christians in Rome who gathered for Mass in the Catacombs; the tombs they had built for the martyrs. We celebrate tonight, just as they did, surrounded by the bones of the saints, first of all to honour the memories of these heroes of the faith, but second and more importantly, to remind ourselves of the communion that exists between us and them; that while we celebrate the Mass here, they celebrate it with us and for us in heaven.
With the example of these Saints, on our altar and in heaven, and the help of their prayers, we can move mountains. We can be peacemakers in our troubled world. We can be the ones who alleviate suffering and poverty. We can be the gentle souls whose love brings others to Christ, to love God and to love their neighbour.
The challenge to us is to find those saints whose lives and experiences speak to our own, to develop a deep spiritual friendship with them, to ask for their prayers, to pray with them for others, and to imitate their lives of holiness.
And if we cannot pray well, if we haven’t the time or ability to read up about the lives of saints and research the ones who speak to us, then we can follow the example of a Roman poveraccio, on the advice of Saint Philip Neri; we can come into the Church and greet the Saints. Our Church here, at the back on the right, has a beautiful chapel with the relics of a great many Saints, from the Apostles of Jesus to the Little Flower; perhaps as you pass by the Church, you might pay them a visit, and ask for their prayers?
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