Today is a special day in the Catholic Church where we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints (aka All Saints Day) and as a result, we have an additional reading today. In looking at the readings, they are jam-packed with messages and lessons. The first reading from Revelations can be interpreted at many different levels, and of course the Gospel today contains the Beatitudes from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. There is so much content within these readings, it’s hard to know where to start. But perhaps we start with one word – Happiness.
Happiness. That is actually what the word Beatitude means. And when reading through the Beatitudes, at first pass one may ask, “What is so happy about these?” Christ states that we must persist through suffering, withstand trials, and patiently endure persecution and insults in order to be rewarded. But another way to look at them is that, the Beatitudes are about doing the right thing amidst all of that. We usually know what the right thing is to do in life, no matter the situation. But we often fail to execute. We often take the lesser road or the easy way out and don’t always do the right thing. But Christ is saying that in the face of adversity or trials, we are to do the right thing and treat others with tenderness, compassion, respect, and dignity, and if we do that, even when it is not popular or easy, we will be rewarded and be with Him in Heaven. In this fallen world, the Beatitudes are the path to Happiness.
Living according to the Beatitudes is tough. It’s not easy to be merciful, or clean of heart, or peacemakers in today’s world, especially when there is so much temptation, distraction, and anger. There are a lot of angry people in the world today, a lot of selfishness, and a lot of conflict where it is hard to be compassionate or loving towards one another. It’s not easy to be comforted or satisfied when we’re mourning, or hungry or poor and finding it difficult to put food on the table and make ends meet. It’s hard to not be defensive and hostile when we ourselves are persecuted or insulted for our beliefs or trying to do what is right. And it’s hard to be humble in an egotistic and pretentious world where selfishness reigns. But the way we handle all of this, and do the right thing, is listed in todays Gospel.
By trusting in Christ and remembering that He knows our purpose and that He knew us before we were born, we simply need to surrender to His will and “Rejoice and be glad” in the midst of our trials. If we can find a way to do this, “our reward will be great in heaven.”
As St. John wrote:
“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
We are God’s children here on Earth, and while He may reveal our purpose or His plans for us in small bits, we never see His entire plan for us. It is only once we make it into Heaven and see the big picture when we will realize who we really are, and truly experience Christ for Who He is. This is what is described in John’s vision in the reading from Revelations. John again writes:
“They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice:
‘Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.’”
Revelations is hard to understand and interpret, but in his vision, John sees the people standing before the Father and the Son, purely dressed in white and in great joy. He later writes of a discussion he has with one of the elders, where the elder tells John who these people are:
“These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.”
These people followed Christ’s path. None of them were perfect on earth, and in fact, many were big-time sinners. They were human. They were us. But they did their best while on Earth to do the right thing and follow Jesus, and live according to their faith and His sacraments and receive the grace necessary to save them. They survived the worst the world has to offer by never wavering too far from Christ’s path, and always finding their way back onto it when they stumbled. Some of these people were well known on Earth. Some of them were not. But now these people are pure and in Heaven, rejoicing in God’s love. Now these people are saints, living eternally in Happiness. We too can be saints, and we know how to get there; we just need to do the right thing.
