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Writer's pictureFr. Paul Moore II

Be A Saint

Is it me, or did October just fly by? We packed that month with fun… a cancer benefit bake sale, Octoberfest, the new street art sign, All Hallows Eve Sunday, and just like that, it’s November! Want to hear something really scary? Advent starts in just 21 days! Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I still have things to say about this season. With all due respect, stay in your lane Santa.


Last week we celebrated Halloween (All Hallows Eve), then All Saints Day, followed by All Souls Day. Priests get a lot of questions about the afterlife around those days, and we are in good company; Jesus was asked about it too as we read in today’s Gospel, Luke 20:27-38. Fielding those questions these days, however, can get a little weird.


Do you remember the scene from Avengers End Game when they are talking about time travel and Ant-Man uses “Back to the Future” as a point of reference for the rules of time travel, and Hulk and Iron Man are like, no, that’s just a movie! Very META by the way. Well, it’s sometimes like that for me talking about spirits. People tell me, “I think some souls have to stay on earth because they have unfinished business, like fixing a mistake” which makes me think, oh, you’re talking about ‘The Sixth Sense’ movie with Bruce Willis. Others will say “maybe souls stay because they have to protect someone they love” …Ghost, you are talking about the movie Ghost with Patrick Swayze. I get it! Unchained Melody and the pottery wheel; it’s a moving story, but not in the bible.


Now – there are indeed truly strange and downright spooky stories in the Bible! There is the story of King Saul consulting the Witch of Endor, hosting a séance to raise up the spirit of the prophet Samuel. There is the eerie telling of the disembodied, strange moving finger at Balthazar's Feast, or the dry bones that reanimate in Ezekiel’s vision. The Bible doesn’t shy away from death but faces it from a place of hope. Consider these verses:

  • “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 1 Corinthians 15:55

  • “ For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.” Philippians 1:21

  • “...to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8

They can be a great comfort at times of loss. Yet its important to remember at times of mourning, there are no easy answers to pain and grief. Our job in those moments is to love people with everything we’ve got, show empathy, draw close, and listen. That’s what saints do, and I love that our church celebrates holy days that both recognize how hard death is and encourage us to mourn with hope.


You see, it’s no mistake that All Saints Day is sandwiched in between Halloween and All Souls Day when we remember the departed. The reason being that Christianity is all about life and living life more abundantly. Jesus came to set us free from the bonds of death which means more than just going to heaven one day, but that right NOW, abundant joy is to be found in living and loving well. Eternity isn’t as far away as we so often convince ourselves; its right here in the person of Christ Jesus. As He said in our Gospel today, He isn’t the God of the dead, He is the God of the living! The resurrection isn’t just about what happened (Halloween) or what will happen (all souls), but it is happening right now in our hearts by faith. It is the opportunity to truly love each other and love God. To dare to be saints.


In today’s reading the Sadducees, contemporaries of the Pharisees but very different in their beliefs, confront Jesus. They don’t believe in resurrection (Sad, you see) and as critics often do, they try to attack Jesus in the form of a “question” in front of a crowd. They have been unable to shame people away from following Jesus. It turns out all that “he eats with sinners” or “he is breaking the rules” stuff is resonating with people. So, they switch tactics to attack His theology. I believe it was almost a decade ago that the great modern philosopher and world-renowned existentialist thinker, Taylor Swift, said “Haters gonna hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.” Some of you are shocked that came out in 2014!


Jesus shakes it off (see what I did there?) and in rare form He argues back! In this passage, He directly answers their criticism rather than telling a parable or asking a question of His own. They are playing games with people’s hearts and Jesus isn’t having it. He confronts them. They are, in fact, doing more than just questioning Him about eternity. They are passive-aggressively trying to hit Jesus for the fact that so many of His disciples are women. The practice they speak of, called “levirate” marriage, was when a family would pass on a widow to a brother of her husband until she produced a child, suggesting that was her only worth. Note how they are asking who the wife will belong to? Jesus doesn’t play their game - He responds saying “those” as in both men and women are married and given in marriage.


He rejects the premise. He goes on to further say that “those” (means everyone) in the age to come aren’t going to be concerned about titles and roles but that as God’s children “all ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God”. That isn’t to say we won’t know and love each other, of course we will. Perfectly. In the presence of true love, God, all fear and death is conquered. That makes us free to love like never before, to love like saints!


But we don’t have to wait until then. That’s what the Kingdom of God is all about, not just in ‘Elysium’, but here and now. Each week in the Lord’s prayer we declare ‘on Earth as it IS in Heaven’, not as it will be in heaven. Jesus wants us to experience it now. Listen, death is hard. But, as Christians, we don’t hide from it – we confront the reality of death from a place of love in action. When we love one another, especially the vulnerable, that is Jesus' resurrection power working in us.


Many years ago, my dad and I were visiting Children’s Oncology Hospital in Minsk, Belarus when a nurse came running up to us speaking Russian in a panic. Our interpreter was struggling to get it all translated, so he just said, “A child is dying. Come quick”. We raced down the hall and my heart dropped as I realized we were heading to the room that my Natasha, the girl who inspired our humanitarian work, died in. We entered the room and saw a little boy in the very same bed she had been in. His parents were standing by the window, frozen in horror as they watched their child struggling for each breath. My dad placed his hand on the boy’s head and began to pray. I kneeled by his side and held his hand, whispering prayers myself. His body tensed up, then let go. His mom felt it, cried out, and buried her head into her husband’s chest. As the doctors did their work, we moved over to the parents. There were no words. Dad just opened his long arms and wrapped them around these devastated parents. I did too. The boy’s mom thanked us and insisted, “He is still here!” while pointing at her heart. Not in denial but with the understanding that her son was more than a memory. He was resurrected; present with them in God’s love.


Jesus’ promise that He is the God of the living means that when we choose ‘His will be done’, when we choose love, resurrection happens. It doesn’t have to be perfect love – saints aren’t perfect (the apostles prove that)! A saint just tries to draw close to the heart of God. So many of us are missing dear ones today. Barbara, Dave, Brian, Dave, Robyn, Larry, Regina, all the souls we prayed for this week; they aren’t ‘dead’, they live. In just a few moments we will speak the words, “Therefore we praise you, joining our voices with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven”. The ones we lost are the company of heaven, and they are closer to God’s heart than we can fathom. Our Holy Days this past week are about embracing that truth. Remember that when we miss them most, we can draw close to Him and there they are. Saints by His side. When we dare to be saints, we draw close to them too.



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