(Solemnity of All Saints (1998): This homily was given on November 1, 1998 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Revelation 7: 2-4, 9-14; Matthew 5: 1-12.)

"How does a person become a saint?"

That was one of the questions that the fourth graders at St. Pius X School asked me the other day when I was visiting their class. Well, first of all, I gave them what I would call the "bottom line" answer: I said, "You become a saint by getting to heaven. Everyone who receives the gift of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ after death becomes a saint!" I then reminded them of the feast that we are celebrating in the Church today: the Solemnity of All Saints--a day when we honor all those who have made it: all those who have become a part of that vast crowd that St. John saw in his famous vision of Revelation 7. (We heard John's account of that vision a few moments ago in our first reading.) Hopefully, many of our deceased relatives and friends are already a part of that crowd. By the grace of God, we will all be a part of it someday.

Did my "bottom line" answer satisfy these fourth graders? No, it didn't--because I soon realized that wasn't what they wanted to know. When they said to me, "How does a person become a saint?" what they were really asking is how a person becomes a CANONIZED saint. So I told them. I gave them a brief explanation of the modern-day process the Church uses to verify the fact that someone is now a saint in heaven. And in doing so, I spoke a bit about Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I said that she is someone who will very likely be canonized--but only after the Church goes through the normal process of investigating her life and verifying miracles which people attribute to her heavenly intercession. Well, at that point, a young girl's hand went up. She said, "Fr. Ray, do you think that Princess Diana will be canonized too?" At first, I must tell you: I was taken aback by what she said. But then I realized how revealing this girl's question was. In fact, her one, simple question helped me to understand something: it helped me to understand just how much people in the secular media have clouded our understanding of sanctity. Here we were having a discussion about Mother Teresa of Calcutta (perhaps the holiest woman of the 20^th century), and Princess Diana immediately pops into the mind of this little girl. Why? Because, with the help of the media, this fourth grader has confused sanctity with celebrity. And so have many other people. Remember when Mother Teresa passed away last year, just a few days after Princess Diana? The media made it sound as if these two women led lives which were equally virtuous! I don't think so! Simply put, one was a woman of great sanctity, the other a woman of great celebrity. Now please don't misunderstand me here: Princess Diana did many wonderful things during her life. From all external indications she had a great deal of compassion and love for those less fortunate than she was. But sanctity is more than mere philanthropy! It certainly includes philanthropy, but it goes way beyond that. When a person is canonized a saint, the Church declares that this was an individual who exemplified extraordinary or "heroic" virtue in his or her life: incredible faith, unwavering hope (even in the midst of tremendous trials), and superabundant charity. To put it in the terms of today's Gospel text from Matthew 5: for a person to be canonized a saint, he or she must live the message of the Beatitudes in a radical, extraordinary way! That's why the Church tells us that these people are worthy of our veneration and imitation. Although they were as human as the rest of us, they were truly poor in spirit (that is to say, they consistently put their trust in the Lord); they confidently sought their strength in God in the midst of all their sorrows, and they had true sorrow for their sins. They were sincerely and deeply humble; they desired holiness more than anything else in life; they showed mercy toward everyone--even their enemies; they worked tirelessly for peace; and they gladly suffered persecution for the sake of Christ and their Catholic faith. That means that they were not simply "nice people who did some nice things." They were much, much more.

Sanctity and celebrity are not the same. Our world needs to understand that. Some who have great sanctity also have great celebrity (Mother Teresa certainly did--she was both holy and famous). But it is possible to have great celebrity and very little sanctity, or great sanctity and little or no celebrity. (In fact, the feast of All Saints honors in a particular way people in that last category: men and women who quietly lived lives of great holiness and are now in heaven--even though they haven't been formally canonized by the Church.)

But Fr. Ray, what about those people who did not live lives of extraordinary holiness? Is there any hope for them? Of course there is. The Church tells us that we are to pray for all the dead, in the hope that they are at least in purgatory. By the way, that's what tomorrow is about. Tomorrow is All Souls' Day. On that occasion we pray for those who have died in the state of grace but who still need further purification before they can enter heaven. Actually that's what we do every time we offer Masses for the dead: we pray for the souls in purgatory. We don't pray for people who are already in heaven--they don't need our prayers. And we definitely don't pray for those in hell, because our prayers can't possibly help them. We pray for those who are (in a manner of speaking) almost in heaven--knowing that when they finally get there they will pray for us.

A priest friend of mine sent me an interesting poem the other day, which I'll share with you now to conclude my homily. This poem reminds us that holiness is not an option--it's for everybody without exception. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us to "Strive for that holiness without which no one can see the Lord." (Hebrews 12: 14) Over the years, many people have said to me, "Fr. Ray, do I have to be a saint?" My answer to that is, "Only if you want to end up in heaven! Because at the end of time, when all is said and done, there will be only two classes of people: the saints and the damned." May this little poem inspire us to be saints:

I knelt to pray but not for long,

I had too much to do.

I had to hurry and get to work

For bills would soon be due.

So I knelt and said a hurried prayer

And jumped up off my knees.

My Christian duty was now done

My soul could rest at ease.

All day long I had no time

To spread a word of cheer.

No time to speak of Christ to friends,

They'd laugh at me I'd fear.

No time, no time, too much to do,

That was my constant cry,

No time to give to souls in need

But at last the time, the time to die.

I went before the Lord,

I came, I stood with downcast eyes.

For in His hands God held a book;

It was the book of life.

God looked into His book and said

"Your name I cannot find.

I once was going to write it down...

But never found the time."