November 1, 2011
Revelation 7: 2-4,9-14 + Psalm 24 + 1 1 John 3: 1-3 + Matthew 5: 1-12
The Bible is not the only way to learn about God. It is not the only way God is revealed to us. If you couldn’t read at all, you could still learn about God from the Saints. They are living scriptures. Their lives, their love, their faith, their service all reveal God to us. By knowing them, we can all walk God’s way by the light of saint’s life.
Unfortunately, most of the Saints we can name have by reason of legend and our strange need to exaggerate become larger than life, and that’s too bad. The first qualification the church looks for in the modern process of canonization is humanness, and then the church looks at what grace can do with human nature. The Saints are simply our brothers and sisters who arrived at what God wishes for us all, a true, full, and graced humanity. I call it wholeness, and that is the stuff of which holiness is made.
John in the second reading today goes right to the heart of the matter. This whole idea of being holy is simply living like children of God; living like children who are loved. It is my observation that children who are loved no matter what they have or what they do not have are happy. In fact, those who have very little, but plenty of love are the happiest of all. They laugh a lot, giggle, smile, and tease. They are quick to dance at the sound of tune, and they have all the signs of joy about them.
The fact of the matter is: there are no sad saints. I don’t think it’s possible. I do think that some story tellers for one reason or another may not choose to tell us the fun parts of the lives of saints; and the consequence of that has not been particularly helpful when it comes to imagining ourselves as saints. We ought to just admit the fact that having a sense of humor is a necessray part of being fully alive, emotionally mature, and a psychologically healthy human being. If Jesus was fully human, then he must have had a great sense of humor. If not why would people have wanted to be around him? Why would children have been so attrated to him?
That window up there always cracks me up for two reasons: one is that I imagine that Jesus must have roared in laughter at Peter jumping out of a boat thinking for one minute that he could walk on water. The other reason is that I was looking at it with some children one day, and I asked them what they thought of that window. One of them said: “I could walk on water too if I had feet that big!”
The saints were men and women others wanted to be around. There are no grumpy saints. Theresa of Avila said: “A sad nun is a bad nun.” She also said: “I am more afriad of one unhappy sister than a crowd of evil spirits.” St Lawrence the martyr who was burned to death on a grill called out to his executioners: “This side is done. Turn me over!” Augustine publically prayed: “Lord, give me chastity, but not yet!” Saint Philip Neri believed that Christian Joy is a gift from God, flowing from a good conscience.” When once asked by a young priest what might be a good prayer for a wedding, he said: “A prayer for peace.” Some of the saints were thought of as foolish for following Christ, and today it’s still much the same. Paul was called a fool for Christ.” The fact is, radical faith is usually seen as foolish.
The happiness of the saints comes from their closeness to God and from a way of looking at and living life that comes from faith. Humor is a prerequisite for sanctity. The saints knew to take the long view of things. They were quick to laugh at life’s absrudities and themselves, and they always placed their trust in God. They had a clear eyed look on life, which simply means that they took serious things seriously and the not-so-serious things not so seriously. They knew the difference.
“A good laugh is a sign of love,” said a famous German theologian. “It may be said to give us a glimpse of, or a first lesson in, the love that God has for everyone of us.”