Several years ago, a Presbyterian minister challenged his congregation to open its doors and its heart more fully to the poor. The congregation initially responded with enthusiasm, and a number of programs were introduced that actively invited people from the less-privileged economic areas of the city, including a number of street-people, to come to their church.
Unfortunately, the romance soon died as coffee cups and other loose items began to disappear, some purses were stolen, and the church and meeting space were often left messy and soiled. A number of the congregation began to complain and demand an end to the experiment: "This isn't what we expected! Our church isn't clean and safe anymore! We wanted to reach out to these people and this is what we get! This is too messy to continue!"
However, the minister held his ground, pointing out that their expectations were naïve, that what they were experiencing was precisely part of the cost of reaching out to the poor, and that Jesus assures us that loving is unsafe and messy, not just in reaching out to the poor, but also in reaching out to anyone.
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Wisdom of Charles Schultz:
After Charlie Brown's team lost another baseball game, he went to Lucy and paid five cents for her psychiatric help. She said: "Adversity builds character. Without adversity a person would never mature and be able to face up to all the things that will come later in life." Charlie asked, "What things?" She replied, "More adversity."
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Since the early centuries, the church has set aside one day to honor, collectively, all saints, both those officially recognized and those known only to God. Today, we celebrate all those known and unknown women, men, and even children who lived their lives with transparency, and who were grounded in their personal integrity. They radiated God’s compassion and were willing to reach out beyond race, creed, gender, ideology, and differences of every kind – no matter the cost, no matter how messy life became when they reached beyond themselves - frequently embracing adversity and more adversity!
Sometimes we tend to think of saints as pious people, at times, irrelevant to our experience and often shown in pictures with halos and ecstatic gazes. But today, saints are women and men like us who live regular lives and struggle with the ordinary and the extraordinary problems of life. What makes them saints is their clear and unwavering focus on God, the Gospel, and God’s people. Each one, in his or her own inimitable way, rolled up their sleeves, put on an apron, and in bending, were eager to wash the feet of all whom they met, no matter how messy the conditions or how unwelcoming the environment. They were willing to face up to all the adversities they encountered – from their own culture, their government, the church, or even their own families or communities!
And so, we may ask, who are the holy ones for us today? What does holiness look like in our time? Are we not all called to holiness through our very Baptism?
One author remarks: “For centuries the church has confronted the human community with role models of greatness. We call them saints when what we really often mean to say is 'icon,' 'star,' 'hero,' ones so possessed by an internal vision of divine goodness that they give us a glimpse of the face of God in the center of the human. They give us a taste of the possibilities of greatness in ourselves."
— Joan D. Chittister in A Passion for Life
On the feast of all saints, we are not only celebrating those who have died –we are celebrating all who have experienced the Gospel message and know that God dwells with them now. Death is not the criteria required for sainthood, nor is perfection. It is in our very participation in life knowing that we have God’s grace and power within us that we can reach beyond ourselves, no matter the cost – no matter the adversity. The saints we celebrate today are the people we know and who lived their faith. Today, we honor all who have gone before us – and what we can simply say about them is that they tried; they believed. They lived as best they could; they persevered in their trust in God; they lived the Beatitudes – perhaps without even knowing it.
I’d like to share from the life of a newly sainted woman – Mother Marianne Cope – who reached beyond herself and met adversity in its many forms and disguises. (I share this with you as a graduate of Brother Dutton Grade School and recall fondly the stories of Br. Joseph Dutton who worked on the island of Molokai for 43 years, and who no doubt ministered with Mother Marianne.)
Prior to the inroads made by Mother Marianne, it is said that hospitals in the U.S. had an unsavory reputation. Many were staffed with unknowledgeable people and were filthy. Many people went to hospitals to die. Mother Marianne began to change all that by instituting cleanliness standards. The simple act of hand-washing between patient visits cut the spread of disease significantly.
• She was a hospital administrator that started the patients' rights movement and changed how people cared for the sick.
• She made sure the medical facilities welcomed all people regardless of race, creed or economic standing.
• She was harshly criticized for treating alcoholics - for she treated their condition as a disease rather than a problem.
In 1884, the Sisters of St. Francis of Syracuse took charge of a leper hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. “When they arrived at the request of the Fr. Damian, they found horrendous conditions. Patients of all ages and both sexes slept together on bloodstained mattresses on the floor; wards crawled with bedbugs, lice, and maggots. The stench of rotting flesh permeated the premises. Mother Marianne immediately improved the sanitary and social conditions of the patients, teaching her sisters how to nurse the sores of the patients"
"When Fr. Damian died from leprosy himself, Mother Marianne took over for him at the island of Molokai. She took charge and established a new standard of living for the residents. As a teenager growing up in New York, she had worked in a clothing factory and had a great sense of style. Rather than provide simple, drab uniforms for her patients, she fashioned beautiful clothing for them. She took great pride in making dresses for the girls. When Mother Marianne went to the island people they had no thought for the graces of life. ‘We are lepers,’ they told her, ‘what does it matter?’ She changed all that. Doctors have said that her psychology was 50 years ahead of its time.”
“As Mother Marianne continued to lead her sisters in their work, she also had to deal with government officials who often seemed to cause more hindrance than help. With tact and determination, she was able to overcome the obstacles put in her way.”
No doubt, Mother Marianne and her sisters could have said, “this isn’t what we expected,” but they truly reached out in love and looked beyond the mess into the eyes and hearts of those with leprosy.
And so in our age, when there is renewed awareness of the suffering of innocent people though human trafficking, or through the exploitation of third world countries, or through the tragic systematic death of peoples by means of torture, famine, and genocide, then we can be sure that the saints are there tirelessly spending their lives to alleviate the suffering of humankind – in all its messiness and adversity.
In an age when there is a clash between human dignity of all and the restrictive power of a few over all, we can be sure that the saints will be there to name the injustice and call it social sin.
In an age when Christians are often confronted to choose between life and death for the sake of the Gospel, we can be sure the saints will be there with a holy resiliency, boldly standing in the mess and muck of it all - choosing life - and willing to stare death in the face for the sake of God’s reign.
In an age when there is an ecclesial restriction of gifts of the Spirit to some groups, we can be sure that the saints will be there and will witness to the freedom of the Spirit regardless of restrictive laws about the use of those gifts.
In an age when discrimination, elitism, and oppression operates in society, in governments, or in churches, we can be sure the saints will be there to again proclaim the reign of God and be voice and heart, call and sign of the God whose design for this world is justice and mercy for all.
The nature of sainthood is an incarnational reality, the shape and form of holiness may change from age to age and culture to culture. But, the Spirit of the Holy will continue to call people like all of us who are present here and those beyond this faith community – for it is God’s caring that we witness and it is God’s love that we share – no matter the cost, no matter the messiness of it all – let us be willing to face up to all things that will come now and later as adversity and more adversity, for it truly builds character.
So, I close with the words of Tagore – who speaks to us about walking forth as living the Beatitudes and what being a saint truly is:
-I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.
- Rabindranath Tagore
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