Solemnity of All Saints

The Way of Happiness

Pope Francis says, “The saints are not perfect models, but people through whom God has passed.” When the first of my Benedictine aunts, the youngest of the five died, all of us in the room experienced a light passing through her body. When her eyes popped open—the eyes that had been so cloudy in her last days of life—they were so clear, so transparent. God had passed through her body. I always knew that my aunt was a saint!

Pope Francis continues, “This is how the saints are: like everyone, they breathe air polluted by the evil there is in the world, but on the journey they never lose sight of Jesus’ roadmap.” Jesus did give us the recipe for blessedness, for happiness. We know them as the beatitudes. Pope Francis describes them this way, “Blessed are the simple, the humble who make room for God, who are able to weep for others and for their own mistakes, who remain meek, fight for justice, are merciful to all, safeguard purity of heart, always work for peace and abide in joy, do not hate and, even when suffering, respond to evil with good.”

At another time, Pope Francis preached the Beatitudes in this way. Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others and forgive them from their heart. Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized and show them their closeness. Blessed are those who see God in every person and strive to make others also discover him. Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home. Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others. Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians.

May we all embrace our identity as “saints in the making.”  May we accept the challenges of following the path to blessedness, to happiness.  And may we celebrate the communion of saints who have gone before us, as well as those we encounter every day—the everyday saints among us!