There is no doubt that the teaching of
Jesus is misunderstood and mischaracterized in our world today. We only have to
watch the news or read the newspaper to see how true that is. Everyone in the
media has an opinion about the Church and it is more often than not based on
some misunderstanding of her doctrine or history.
One of the most common
mischaracterizations of Christians is that, because we believe in life after
death, we do not make the most of our time on earth. Instead of going out and
helping people, we are waiting for Jesus to someday make everything right at
the end of the world. We are more than willing to allow suffering in our lives
and injustice in our world because somehow God will make up for it in heaven.
We are told that if Christians did not believe in heaven and the end of the
world then we would work harder to make this world a better place.
Of course, if this were true, then we
would see atheists and unbelievers taking the lead in serving the poor,
sheltering the homeless and educating the young. However, when we look around,
all the great and enduring charitable institutions were started by people of
faith. Universities and schools throughout the world dedicated to educating the
disadvantaged are mostly staffed by those who are motivated by their belief in
a good and loving God. Everyday, Christians are hard at work visiting prisons,
advocating for human rights and taking in the abandoned. Rather than sitting on
their hands waiting for God to straighten everything out in the hereafter,
people of faith are hard at work to make real what we pray in the Our Father -
“your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
This feast of All Saints offers us an
opportunity to look back and celebrate all the great women and men who took
seriously the words of today’s gospel. They were the poor in spirit who sought
nothing more than the Kingdom of heaven. They were those who hungered and
thirst for righteousness and wanted nothing more than to have God satisfy their
longing. They were the ones who showed mercy to their neighbors because they
had experienced God’s mercy. They were the peacemakers in whom our Heavenly
Father’s love was so real that they were called “children of God.” They worked
for justice and peace to the point of being persecuted and even put to death.
Experiencing our Heavenly Father’s love and goodness, they wanted nothing more
than to share it with others. Even while they looked forward to a heavenly
reward and a final judgment, they strove to bring love and mercy to all those
who were suffering around them.
Today we remember and celebrate women like
Catherine McAuley, the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy. She was a wealthy
woman who lived in Ireland in the nineteenth century. However, she could not
enjoy her money when so many people around her were living in poverty. In hopes
of making a difference, she spent her inheritance to establish a “house of
mercy” in Dublin to house and educate young women. Inspired by her good works,
other women joined her and, encouraged by the Archbishop of Dublin, they formed
a religious order known today as the “Sisters of Mercy”. Soon, houses of mercy
were established throughout Ireland and England from which they spread out to
other countries all with a mission to serve the poor.
We remember and celebrate women like Saint
Marianne Cope. Born in Germany, she soon immigrated to the United States where
she worked in a factory. Then, joining a Franciscan order, she began teaching
in Catholic schools. Inspired by the work of Saint Damien of Molokai with
lepers in Hawaii, she volunteered to go there herself. Along with two other
sisters, she started a home for girls with leprosy who had been abandoned by
their families. She was known not only for her goodness but for her sense of humor.
To make her homes places of joy and laughter, she encouraged the young women to
dress in bright colors. She was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
Catherine McAuley and Marianne Cope are
just two of the thousands of saints whose lives and faith we honor today. There
are many millions more whose names we will never know but who nonetheless
worked to bring God’s love to those who suffer. We might look at all that they
accomplished and think that we could never be like them. However, every one of them
were just like us - sinners redeemed by God’s love and mercy. They simply
trusted God and dedicated themselves to doing whatever He asked of them. To be
saints ourselves, all we need do is say “yes” to whatever God asks of us
bringing to life the words of the Our Father - “your Kingdom come, your will be
done on earth as it is in heaven.
As believers, we look forward to the
inheritance that awaits us in heaven. We long for the day when we will join the
saints and angels in gazing upon God’s face and worshipping Him for all
eternity. We believe that Jesus Christ will come again to judge the nations. On
that day, all wrongs will be righted and all injustice will be vindicated.
However, as we look forward to that day we work to show God’s love to our neighbor
in the spirit of Saint Marianne Cope who said, “What little good we can do in
this world to help and comfort the suffering, we wish to do it quietly and so
far as possible unnoticed and unknown.”
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