by Fr. Tommy Lane
Today is a beautiful celebration of the saints in heaven. We rejoice because they have reached the goal: heaven. Tomorrow, All Souls, we will pray for those who are one step further than us on the journey, the souls in purgatory. Today we honor the saints and thank God for the glory of heaven which they now enjoy. They are saints because they allowed Jesus to work in their lives when they were on earth. Just as saints in stained glass windows allow the light through them, saints during their earthly lives allowed the light of Jesus to shine through them. The saints were exemplary Christians in spite of having faults. One of the ways the saints allowed the light of Christ to shine through them was by living the beatitudes of our Gospel today (Matt 5:1-12). They were poor in spirit, gentle, mourning wrong, hungering and thirsting for justice, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers and sometimes persecuted for their faith. In our first reading today (Rev 7), John saw a huge number in heaven, impossible to count. They are the saints, and we are united with them around Jesus in this celebration today. Some of those John saw in his vision had their robes washed white in the blood of the lamb; in other words, they were martyred for their faith in Jesus (Rev 7:13-14). As Jesus said in the Gospel, “Happy those who are persecuted in the cause of right: theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:10)
People have friends, and also have friends in heaven in the saints. Many people have a devotion to the saints and pray to one or more saints. Friendship with a saint in heaven is good because the saint allows the light of Jesus through to our lives. People pray to their saint friend often, feel the accompaniment of that saint and know that saint intercedes before God for them. Many people can give examples of the intercession and help of the saints in their lives. The greatest saint of all is, of course, Our Lady. We know her love and intercession for us. We honor her especially on her special feast days and pray the rosary to her daily.
Today I would like to think about another saint. Many people have a devotion to Padre Pio, the Capuchin friar who lived on the eastern side of Italy. He was canonized in 2002, so officially he is St. Pius but since we all knew him as Padre Pio before then, a lot of people continue to call him Padre Pio. There are many stories of his miracles and of him bilocating and helping people in other countries even when he was in his friary in Italy. He is famous for having the stigmata, the same wounds as Jesus on his feet, hands, and side.
Earlier this year in my travels, by chance I met someone who grew up in Puerto Rico. We chatted for a few minutes and in the course of our conversation it became obvious that he had a devotion to Padre Pio, so I told him I do also. Then he told me about Padre Pio helping his mother even before she had a devotion to him and before she knew about him. When he took his mom on a trip to Italy, they stopped at a Padre Pio exhibit beside a church. When his mother saw a statue of Padre Pio, she became very emotional and said Padre Pio is not dead. It was only then she realized Padre Pio was the priest who had given her directions when she got lost in Puerto Rico driving home from one side of the island to other after visiting her son and his family. That was 2012, but Padre Pio died in 1968. The following year in 2013, she was involved in a very serious road accident when a truck driver lost control of his truck and crashed into her car. There was a smell of gasoline. She was worried about the possibility of fire, so she made an attempt to get out of the car. Then unexpectedly, the same unknown priest, who had given her directions the previous year when she was lost, was there again. He called her by her name and asked how she was. He told her not to get out of the car because it was dangerous and to wait for the emergency services to arrive and then the priest went away. A policeman arrived on the scene, and he told her the same thing—to wait in the car for the emergency services. She asked the policeman if he had seen the priest, but he had not. During the trip to Italy with her son, she finally realized that the priest who had helped her on those two occasions was Padre Pio. She was helped by a saint in heaven.
One of the ways we show our devotion to the saints and ask their help is by keeping a relic of the saint. Every altar is to have a relic of a saint beneath it, preferably a martyr. People like to have prayer cards with a third-class relic of their favorite saint. (A third-class relic has touched a first-class relic, i.e., has touched the body of the saint.) People of other faiths don’t understand our devotion to the saints or why we have relics, and they find fault with it. They say things like “Sacred Scripture says there is only one mediator between God and man and that is Jesus Christ” (1 Tim 2:5). Of course, Jesus is the one mediator between the Father and us as Scripture says, but others—Our Lady and the saints—can share in his mediation between the Father and us. Indeed, Sacred Scripture itself lends support to relics; we read in Acts 19:11-12, “So remarkable were the miracles worked by God at Paul’s hands that handkerchiefs or aprons which had touched him were taken to the sick, and they were cured of their illnesses, and the evil spirits came out of them.”
If it ever happens that we feel the closeness to us of someone who died, that surely means that person is already sharing in some way in the resurrection of Jesus. That also reminds us that the vast majority of the saints are not canonized, but are nobodies as I once heard them described, and we hope that they include those who were close to us when they were here on earth. Our Lady and the saints are precious friends to have to help us complete our journey to Jesus so that we too can, please God, one day see the light of Jesus with all the other nobodies and canonized saints.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2020
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for November 1: Solemnity of All Saints
The saints: our intercessors 2021
The saints, transformed in heaven, see God 2018
United with the saints in heaven during this Mass 2006
The saints remind us who we are
The saints have reproduced in their lives Jesus’ victory over evil
The communion of saints and our glorious future
Gospel: Homilies on the Beatitudes
Second Reading related: Love of God for us 2009
stories about saints and Halloween