“today we honor all those who, externally, lived ordinary lives.”
The Spiritual War
We are engaged in a war here on earth. The prophet Job tells us, “The life of man upon earth is warfare.” We are constantly faced with obstacles and obstructions to peace, happiness, and justice. In recent years the battle has become more fierce and we have lost much ground. Abortion, same sex marriage, gender identification, are just some of the skirmishes we have lost to the progressives, the new pagans. And having won those battles the victors have dropped all pretense of fairness and neutrality and now seek to punish the losers.
The politicians of the new paganism have become very outspoken in their desire to punish the Church along with anyone else who does not renounce their old beliefs and offer sacrifice to the new Gods of tolerance and diversity. Our world is now much more like it was in the first three centuries of the Church, we have become signs of contention against the modern age.
Today, for just a moment, we take our eyes off the battlefield where the Church Militant fights and sweats and bleeds, and we lift our gaze to Heaven to see the “great multitude which no one could count” gathered around our king, enjoying the victory that is sure to come. These are the saints in heaven, this is the Church Triumphant.
We often think of the saints as having lives so holy and pious that we cannot relate to them. But they struggled in this life just as much as we do now.
Before his conversion, Saint Augustine lived with a woman he was not married to, and even had a child with her. Iñigo López, who became Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a vain man who read trashy novels for entertainment. When he was wounded in battle his biggest concern was whether or not his shattered leg would continue to turn the heads of the society ladies.
The saints are people just like us, from all walks of life, from every age and place. They survived their own time of great distress and found their way to walk with Christ. We look to them for encouragement, strength, and inspiration, because they have fought the good fight and they are eager to have us follow in their footsteps.
The Church Triumphant is a reminder that the Church is always victorious, and has withstood far more dangerous times than this.
A Ghost Story
The Church began celebrating this solemnity in the year 609, in Rome, under the pontificate of Pope Boniface IV. At that time, one of the older neighborhoods in the city was near a huge pagan temple called the Pantheon. It had been built four centuries earlier by the emperor Hadrian, a temple to “all the gods.” But about a hundred years after it was built, Constantine the Great, Christianized the Roman Empire, and the Pantheon was abandoned.
By the year 600 people who lived near the building began to complain. Those who walked by the temple reported that were threatened by eerie voices, fallen bricks came close to injuring them, and icy cold breezes came from within, chilling them to their bones. They reported worse encounters as well and it was clear to the neighboring residents that the place had become haunted by demons.
Around the year 609 the complaints reached a new height and the people appealed directly to Pope Boniface to do something about it. Destroying the massive structure would prove too costly. So Boniface hit on a more creative solution. He exorcised the demons from the building and reconsecrated it as a Catholic Church dedicated not to “all the gods,” but to all the Roman Martyrs, and to Mary, the Queen of All Saints and Martyrs. Soon after the pope did this, the complaints stopped.
All Saints Day is an everlasting reminder that the powers of evil are no match for the power of Christ.
So today we honor all those who, externally, lived ordinary lives. But internally they lived extraordinary lives of faith and piety. God did not ignore them. They make up that great multitude which no one can count.
Most of us live ordinary lives on the outside. And perhaps because of that we may think we cannot live up to the holiness of the saints. But today’s celebration assures us that we can. If we live each day as Christ would have us do, if we strive to do God’s will with all our strength, and show that love by how we treat our neighbors, then our lives may look ordinary on the outside, but they will be extraordinary on the inside.
So let us look to our older brothers and sisters for encouragement and guidance. Study their lives. They still have much to teach us. Many of them lived through times not much different than our own.
The new pagans are at our door. They howl for our blood because we choose to remain true to the teachings of God. How do we respond?
In the movie, “A Man for All Seasons,” Saint Thomas More gives us this advice: “Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind. If He suffers us to come to such a case that there is no escaping, then we may stand to our tackle as best we can, and, yes, Meg, then we can clamor like champions, if we have the spittle for it. But it’s God’s part, not our own, to bring ourselves to such a pass. Our natural business lies in escaping.”
Pray without ceasing for the grace of wisdom and fortitude — the wisdom to avoid persecution and the fortitude to endure it. There can be no retreat from this. We must “take up our cross and follow Jesus,” whatever the cost. The reward is eternal, and the outcome of the battle is already decided. We win.
Pax vobiscum
The Solemnity of All Saints