Abbot Michael Brunner offered this homily to the School community on the Solemnity of All Saints, 2023.

Chapel of Mary, Abbey Church

Yesterday was Halloween, which is just an old way of saying All Saints Eve. Today, of course is All Saints Day, and tomorrow All Souls Day. All Saints and All Souls are two sides of the same coin. Today the Gospel tells us how we should be, how to become blessed and happy, that means how to be “saintly.”

When I first began teaching, I used to ask my high school junior theology class, “Who here wants to be holy?” Only two or three out of twenty would raise their hands. They obviously could not relate the concept of “holiness” to anything desirable. If holiness doesn’t sound like fun to us, that’s too bad if holiness makes us truly happy – that all says we probably misunderstand what it means. Saints are not just good people who have died and gone to heaven. Saints are VERY alive as spirits. Modern people today have an aversion to spiritual reality and an undue attraction to material reality. There are over 10,000 saints, citizens of heaven, recognized by the Church. And for the last 1000 years each new saint has been responsible for at least one miracle in response to people’s prayers. Pope Francis, in his 10 years as Pope, has canonized over 900 saints and beatified over 1500 holy men and women, which attests to a lot of miracles mediated by saints in our own time. We human beings are spirits with bodies. We begin our lives as saints. At our baptism, we are about as holy as any human can get. Officially canonized saints are people who took their commitment made at baptism so seriously and heroically, they are held up as examples for us to follow. In that first reading from the Book of Revelation, very appropriate for Halloween with its bizarre imagery, the saints are described as those who have survived the time of great distress.

Vespers at Portsmouth

But the official saints are not the only ones who survive. They are not the only saints. There are many, many more. It is the destiny of every human being to be a saint! Our family members and friends who have passed on into that state of being we call the next world are there waiting for us, and they are here with us in this church, now, because spirits are participating in eternity which is not limited by time or space. So, all of us who are baptized are members of the "communion of saints," which includes not only ourselves, but also includes all those whose memory we celebrate on All Souls Day, tomorrow. All of us together are alive in Christ. Death simply marks a milestone on the journey, not an end to it! Those whom we love stay with us whether they live in our time or in eternity. We share with all of them God’s calling us to holiness, even if our struggles here can make us less worthy, sinful, at times. We do struggle through life. A human life is a time of great distress, whether it was during the Great Depression here, during World War II in Europe, in Gaza now, or right here, right now. This distress, this struggle, is what we call original sin, the brokenness of our world and human life.

Sacristy chapel

Holiness as experienced by the saints is the original wholeness, the goodness of life and creation as intended by God. It is infinite fun. Our experience of wholesome holiness is only possible through the mercy of God, mediated to us through Jesus Christ. So today we not only honor the Saints, but also our triune God who made it possible for us and all the saints to become saints. Like Jesus carrying his cross, a saint is someone who, when they fall, gets up and keeps trying. As Saint Augustine said, there is no saint without a past, and no sinner without a future. And he had been a big sinner and became a big saint, so he would surely know. All Saints Day and All Souls Day should remind us to keep trying, never giving up on ourselves, and never giving up on others, never giving up on our loved ones who have died. As much as we know from our faith, there is much we don’t know and would like to know. That is only human. We know that everyone who dies is not ready to fully experience God, has not been perfected in love during this short life. So tomorrow, on All Souls Day, we pray especially for those who are continuing their spiritual preparation and journey in that condition of the next life we call Purgatory. The great faith traditions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam – all recognize the truth that many people need to continue growing in holiness, recognize that many people are not whole when they leave this world. Our memory of them, of their love in our lives, and our prayers for them, help them to grow and attain their union with God and the saints. We also know that our loved ones can help and pray for us, just as surely as those canonized saints helped those who prayed for the saint’s intercession. We are still together with them, still a community of living persons, only they are more alive than us. Jesus tells us today how we can achieve this wholeness and this life in our lifetime by living the Beatitudes, which literally means “The Happinesses.” They are not passive qualities; they are active in that they inform our actions, and these actions make us the individuals we are. Poor in spirit means not chained to the stuff of this world. Mourning is a recognition of the distress of this life and the real pain it causes human beings. Meek is to not be like our politicians, but being gentle with yourself and others. Hunger and thirst for righteousness is an interior passion for justice for others.