Homily for the Feast of All Saints - Year C

Deacon Jerry Franzen   Cathedral       November 1, 2022 

Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14       1 John 3:1-3      Matthew 5:1-12

Praise Be Jesus Christ.  “Good Morning”  

The late Johnny Hart was famous as the originator of the “BC” and the “Wizard of Id” comic strips. 

He was known and occasionally criticized for the inclusion of Christian topics in his strips, especially around Christian Holidays.

His Easter Sunday strip was always Christian in nature.

And because it was in a Sunday paper, it was always a longer strip and in color.

His last Easter Sunday BC strip in 2007 went something like this:

In frame one, there were the typical BC caveman and a female character.

The man is dressed in a black caveman suit,  and the woman is in blue.

The man is standing near a fruit tree.

He is saying to the woman, “I spilled fruit juice on my suit.”

She replies, “Take it off and I will rinse it out for you.”

In the second frame he says, “And be naked?”

She replies, “Silly, go behind that big rock.”

In the next frame, you see him with his head peering up from behind the rock and she has waded with his outfit into a body of water to rinse it.

You see a red color in the water off to one side of her.

In the next frame, you see her up to her waist in the water rinsing his suit, and the red color has spread to being all around her.

Next, she pulls his suit out of the water and it is all white.

In the next frame, both the man and the woman are seen dressed in their wet clothes, his all white and hers now white from the waist down.

In the last frame, which gives a broader view of the scene, one can see the source of the red color in the water, as a stream of red running down a hill into the body of water.

The two characters are standing on the shore and looking up at the top of the hill, which has three empty crosses, and the source of the red stream is at the foot of the middle cross.

 I

 The first reading today is taken from the Book of Revelation.

We don’t often have a reading the this book, the last book in the Bible.

This book contains a description of events during the end times.

A man named John is identified as the author at the beginning of the book.

This may or may not be John the Evangelist.

The events are presented as a vision revealed to John by Jesus.

The truths of this Book are expressed symbolically.  

At the end of today’s selection we heard about John’s vision of a large number of people dressed in white robes.

One of the elders said: “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.”

Who are these people in the white robes?

They are the saints, those in heaven at the Last Judgment.

They had survived the time of distress, their time on earth wherein they had to deal with the effects of original sin, with temptation and the distress of falling into sin.

They had fallen to temptation as we all do, but they had died in the state of grace.

 The saints we celebrate in the Church are composed of two types.

There are those who have been declared saints by the Church, because they have been investigated and events in their lives have led the Church to determine that they most surely are in heaven with God.

These saints have generally been honored with particular feast days in the Church calendar.

They are only part of the great multitude seen in the vision

Today we celebrate these saints but also a much larger portion of that great multitude: all the rest of the souls in heaven who have not officially been brought forth for recognition by the Church.

They are saints too, those who have died in the state of grace and have been released from the state of purgatory.

Since a “great multitude” was seen in the vision, that is a good sign that we can eventually be among them.

And we don’t have to be associated with any miracles or suffer martyrdom to qualify for sainthood.

All we have to do is, like the saints in the vision, keep our robes washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.  

We have to live a life where we aim to stay in the state of grace.

Chances are that if we live a life aiming to stay in the state of grace, we will die in the state of grace.

If we don’t live that type of life,  the chances are greater that we will die not in state of grace.

Again, what do we have to do?

Wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb, when they become stained by sin.

 II

 When you were baptized you either wore or were given a white garment of some type to wear.

After the cleansing waters of baptism, putting on that white garment        symbolized your new clean life, no stain from sin.

That is much more meaningful to an adult being baptized than for an infant who cannot commit or know sin.

The prayer at the time of this clothing in a white garment is;

“You have become a new creation and have clothed yourself in Christ.

May this white garment be a sign of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring it unstained into eternal life.”

 Recall that in this Easgter cartoon the red coloration of the water. that was the blood of Christ, the Pascal Lamb .

And recall how that red color in the water came from the cross of Christ.

The little guy’s caveman garment was black with sin.

He was standing next to a fruit tree, and he said that he had stained his suit with fruit juice.

I wonder what kind of fruit tree that might have been.

Because he had to remove his garment, he was concerned about being naked.

Sound familiar?

When the woman submerged his outfit in the red-stained water and raised it, it was white,  as was the part of her outfit that was submerged.

Easter is the day on which Christ completed the Pascal Mystery, the Mystery of His dying by shedding His Blood, and rising in reparation for our sins.

He shed his blood in order that we might wash our stained white robes and cleanse ourselves from sin.

 III

 So what do we have to do to attain sainthood and join this group which we celebrate today?

Live a life as free as we can from sin.

Try to avoid staining that white robe of our baptism.

Be faithful to our baptismal promises.

When we do commit sins and are distressed, we know that all we have to do to relieve that distress is to express our sorrow to the priest who stands in for Christ in the sacrament of Penance. 

It is by Christ’s shedding of His blood for us that our sorrow is accepted by God and we are redeemed.   

Our white robe is then again washed clean of any sin, and we are once again on our way to sainthood.

To paraphrase today’s Psalm Response:

“Lord, we are the people who longs to see your face.”