Solemnity of All Saints

       This Sunday we set aside our 31st Ordinary Sunday readings to celebrate All Saints. This great catch-all solemnity reminds us of the whole Heavenly Hosts of Holy Men & Women who have gone before us and are now praising the Lamb around His Glorious Throne in Heaven and praying for us. Part of their praise is prayers that we too may one day join them there, that we too may be nothing less than saints!

      The Solemnity of All Saints is always November 1st. [Monday, Nov 2, we will pray for all the souls of our faithful departed. Mass at Holy Family will be held at 6p.] Here in the USA, it is fitting that we start the month of November with recognition & gratitude for all the Holy Saints. November in the USA is a month leading to the great secular culmination of Thanksgiving Day. It is a month, as the year draws to a close and the fall sun slips into winter cold, that invites us to reflection, gratitude, recognition, acknowledgment of all that has come before us. Of all that has come to us! Of just how blessed we are. Of how God’s mercy is renewed each morning. To draw the connection between the sanctity of the Saints to the call of gratitude & thanksgiving seems obvious. One way to think about Sanctity is to consider it as the acknowledgment & stewardship of all as a Gift from God. Saints have done this in a supernatural manner. Many of our canonized saints were those that lived lives of poverty & simplicity, so that they could attend to the poor & simple. Such saints did not hold back for themselves of copious graces of God, but handed such graces on to those they encountered in thought, word, & deed. They spent themselves – their strength, their intellect, their prayers, their lives for others. Servants & friends to the weak & marginalized everywhere. And they did so, bursting with gratitude & thanksgiving. They did so as a sign of their gratitude & thanksgiving. They were grateful for the opportunity to give of what they had. They provide us with a clear and definitive example of how to interact with what we have and how to use it for others and our own holiness.

     Amassing a nest egg is a common pursuit & practice here in the USA. Even in a month when we are mindful of gratitude & thanksgiving, we oddly enough often worry about ‘having enough & getting enough’. But is that our common call as Catholic Christians? We should be good stewards, absolutely. We should be responsible & prudent, yes! But we must never allow our worldly possessions to take the place of our faith & dependance upon God. In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us, “Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you” (Luke 6:38). Jesus teaches and the saints demonstrate that to receive means first to give. Do you believe that? Are you willing to live that?

      One American saint who gives us an amazing example of this is St. Katharine Drexel. She was the second American-born saint to be canonized. Katherine was born in Philadelphia in 1858, the second child of a prominent & wealthy banker. Her mother passed away just five weeks after Katharine’s birth. Her father remarried. The Drexel’s were financially and spiritually well-endowed. They not only prayed but practiced what the Church calls the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Katharine grew up seeing her father pray for 30 minutes each evening. Every week, her stepmother opened the doors to their house to care for the poor. The couple distributed food, clothing & provided rent assistance to those in need. Katharine never let her family's money adversely affect the way she lived her life and faith. She was an example of a Christian with a proper understanding that the goods of this earth are given for the common good. After watching her stepmother suffer with terminal cancer, Katharine also learned that no amount of money could shelter them from pain or suffering. Katharine became imbued with a passionate love for God and neighbor, and she took an avid interest in the material and spiritual well-being of black and native Americans. At the death of her father, she inherited a third of the family fortune, nearly $125 million in today’s money. She became more and more interested in helping others. After much prayer & encouragement, Katharine decided she would give herself and her inheritance to God through service to both Native Americans and African Americans. She established a religious congregation called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored, She established 63 schools, 50 missions, and 1 university. For 64-years, she dedicated her life and her fortune to this work. St Katharine was remembered for her love of the Eucharist and a desire for unity of all peoples. Katherine challenges us to be grateful & thankful people using our God given resources to build His Kingdom.

Nothing Less than saints for the Holy Family of God.

Holy Family, rich in gratitude & thanksgiving, Pray for us.

~ Fr Jeremy M. Gries