As we celebrate this feast of All Saints, it may be necessary to ask this question: What is a Saint?
There are a few immediate answers to that question, answers like:
- Saints are people who live holy lives.
- Saints are people who love God.
- Saints are people who are now in heaven.
So these are the obvious and immediate answers to the question “What is a Saint?”
But the most important and fundamental answer to that question is this : A saint is one who believes that there is a heaven and that there is a God.
This is fundamental for a Saint, especially when the Saint was in this world. To believe that there is a heaven is fundamental because that is the hope in the journey of life on earth.
So the destination is not on earth but in heaven. It is a hope for an eternity in heaven.
Not only to believe in Heaven is fundamental, but together with it is also to believe in God who is calling the Saint to come home to be with Him in heaven.
So to put it simply, a Saint is one who believes that there is a heaven, who believes in God who is in heaven, and who is now with God in heaven.
And just as the Saints heard and answered that call from God to come home to heaven, we too are called to be with God in heaven, a call that we hear loudly today.
And if we believe in what the Saints believe in, then we will live our lives according to the Beatitudes, which we heard in the gospel.
It is because we believe that there is a heaven and that there is a God, we would want to be gentle, to do what is right and just, be merciful, be pure in heart, be peacemakers and accept sufferings and offer sacrifices for the love of God.
The Beatitudes are blessings that God gives us to help us on our journey to heaven and that we live our lives according to God’s ways and not to the ways of the world.
So let us continue to believe that there is a heaven, that God is calling us to be with Him in heaven, and also that all the Saints in heaven are praying for us, so that one day we will join them in heaven to praise God forever.