Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Feast of All Saints

This morning's celebrant decided that since today is a major feast day of the church, that he could and would give us a few thoughts to reflect upon. Weekday celebrants are not required to give a homily; in fact, they are discouraged from doing it because we have a schedule to maintain... Morning Prayer at 6:30, Mass at 7:00, breakfast at 7:30... too much to do in too little time, and a sermon that lasts more than five minutes upsets the apple cart.

But we like this guy, for one thing, and he pretty much kept it to five minutes. His question was: what exactly makes a person a saint? How are they different from the rest of us in their saintliness... what criteria gives them the right to have St. before their names? He was looking more for an inner dialog as he threw out his own main point, but two of us approached him later with out own additions...

Brutal honesty was his criteria. A saint lives his or her life for God and is true to that call, whatever and however it's perceived. Even when that honesty is offensive, and leads to big trouble, they persist. Another sister added transparency and I added consistency.

What would you add?

3 comments:

Pat said...

Passionate love for the journey, for the sacred, for God, whatever "object" should follow the word love.

Anonymous said...

I have a difficult time with the word "brutal" being used in the context of what God would want of us. Faith comes to mind.

Claire Joy said...

I'd probably argue that the Pharisees thought Jesus' honesty concerning them was pretty brutal.