SOLEMNITY OF ALL SAINTS – 2020

Ø  This is the 31^st Sunday in Ordinary time.

Ø  However, in the liturgical calendar of this year instead of the 31^st. Sunday we will celebrate the solemnity of All Saints.  

Ø  The Saints are our brothers and sisters who made of the love of God and neighbor the guide of their life.

THE BOOK OF REVELATION

Ø  The book of Revelation or Apocalypse manifests the historical situation of the Christian community, persecuted by the Roman Empire.

Ø  We may synthesize the content of the book as follows:

o   The Christian community purified by the word of Christ, wisely illuminated and guided by the Spirit, faces up the oppressive world, for keeping alive the living testimony of Jesus. It suffers the same fate as her Lord, persecution and rejection and death.

o   But of the Revelation – of the visions and revelations that Christ gives her, the Church gains the strength needed to stand firm before the threat, the spell and the charm of the Empire.

o   This is the book of the Christian testimony, of the Christian martyrs, those who have worshiped neither the Beast nor its image.

Ø  The message of the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation is wrapped and hidden within a series of symbols and images, some are difficult to understand. We need to go deep into the symbol in order to decode the meaning and within the events, liturgies, battles… to go beyond what we see and use our imagination to discover their meaning for our life today, here and now.

Ø  It is not a book of the past but of the present.

FIRST READING  Rev 7:2-4,  9-14.

The book of Revelation, also called Apocalypse, offers in this reading a very attractive vision of heaven.   

Ø  John, sees some angels who are responsible to strike and punish the earth

Ø  But another angel stops them until all the servants of God will be sealed. 

Ø  John says that these servants are innumerable 144,000  (12x12x1000)  the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 apostles and   1,000 which is the number of  the history of salvation.    

Ø  Besides them, he sees also a huge crowd of people from other races, tongues, countries, who are in front of the throne like the 144,000.  

Ø  These are the members of the New Israel, the new people of God, who come from all the races and corners of the earth.  

Ø  From the description the authors makes of them we deduce that they have given their life for their faith, the martyrs.  

Ø  They sing and praise God for his greatness, he is seated on the throne, and they also sing to the lamb.   

Ø  This lamb which is described in some other place to be standing and being slain at the same time is the risen Jesus.  

Ø  The angels, the heavenly beings who are around the altar, the servants of God sing also his praises  

Ø  One of the elders asks John, who are these clothed in white… where do they come from? 

Ø  These are those who have survived the great tribulation and have washed their garments in the blood of the lamb…  

Ø  What a paradox, to wash in blood. Yes, all of us have washed and are washed continually in the blood of our Brother and Savior Jesus.  

Ø  All are standing, as a sign of victory, like the Lamb who is standing; they partake in the resurrection of Jesus.  

 

Responsorial Psalm: PS 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6

R.  Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
The LORD’s are the earth and its fullness;
the world and those who dwell in it.
For he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.
R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD?
or who may stand in his holy place?
One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean,
who desires not what is vain.
R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
He shall receive a blessing from the LORD,
a reward from God his savior.
Such is the race that seeks him,
that seeks the face of the God of Jacob.
R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.

Ø    To seek the face of God.  What a beautiful expression which describes the longing of the one who is in love with God, and wishes to enter into the eternal vision of  the God that he or she has been seeking and loving during his or her entire life.  

Ø  These are our brothers and sisters whom we call “saints”  

SECOND READING   1 Jn 3:1-3

Ø  It is the love of God which makes us his children.   

Ø  This is why the world does not know us, as it never knew Jesus. 

Ø  Thus the world, in its negative meaning as the place of sin, has persecuted Jesus, and also the followers of Jesus over the centuries.  

Ø  We are already children of God, but we do not know how we will be in the life to come.  

Ø  But we know that we will be like him.  

Ø  What John says is very interesting; he says that we will be like Him because we will see him as he is.    

Ø  This hope makes us pure, pure as God is pure, without sin.

GOSPEL Mt :1-12a.

Ø  I copy here another way to formulate the Beatitudes.  

Ø  They will help us to better understand what Jesus wanted to tell us with this new Law of the Kingdom.    

Blessed “the poor in spirit” those who know how to live with few things, always trusting in God.   Happy, blessed the church with the soul of a poor, she will have less problems, she will be attentive to the needy and will live the gospel with greater freedom. Hers is the kingdom of God.    

Blessed  “the long-suffering ones” those who live with benevolent and clement hearts. Happy, blessed the church full of meekness. She will be a gift for the violent world.   She will inherit the promised land.    

Blessed “those who cry”, because they endure unjust sufferings and marginalization. With them a new world better and more dignified can be created. Happy, blessed  the church who suffers because she is faithful to Jesus.  She will be consoled by God.   

Blessed  “those who hunger and thirst for justice”  those who have not lost either the desire to be more just or the zeal to make a worthier world.   Happy, blessed the church who seeks with passion the kingdom of God and its justice. In her the best of the human spirit will be found. Her longing  will be satisfied.  

Blessed “the merciful”   who act, work and live moved by compassion. They are on earth, those   more like the Heavenly Father.  Happy, blessed the church from whom God  takes away the heart of stone and gives her a heart of flesh.  She will reach mercy. 

Blessed “the peacemakers”  who with patience and faith, seek the good of all. Happy, blessed the church which puts into the world peace and not dissent, reconciliation and not confrontations. She will be called “daughter of God”   

Blessed  “the persecuted for the sake of justice”, they respond with meekness to the injustices and offenses. They help us to overcome evil with good.  Happy, blessed the church persecuted because she follows Jesus. Hers is the kingdom of God.    

Ø   Happy will we be if we enter through the way of Jesus, and we learn from him  to love the Father in heaven above all and our brothers and sisters as Jesus loves them.    

Ø  This is the blessing, the beatitude, the recompense of all our brothers and sisters who have allowed the Lord to transform them with love.   

CLARETIAN CORNER

1855, All Saints day while I was in prayer, his divine majesty commanded me, to note down some points about the manner He wanted to start the General reform  and told me what I had to write. I was fervently praying when the Lord gave me the command and His Majesty had me as if I was very strongly tied, not able to move, because I wanted to stop praying, since such great things, being what I am frighten me.

             … Then, the Lord told me to recollect and prostate myself with great humility and reverence since it seemed I was face to face with the Majesty of God. I felt as if He let loose all the ties with which he held me bounds as well as a great spiritual submission to obey and to write, which until then I never felt, rather a very great repugnance. María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters. Autobiography 51-52 

Last Friday, October 24, we have celebrated the Feast of St. Anthony Mary Claret.  These are the words that Pope Pius XII said to the Claretians in the audience of May 8, 1950  the day after the canonization of Claret.   

Great soul born to embrace contrasts

Humble of origin and glorious at the eyes of the world  

Small in his body, but with the spirit of a giant   

Modest in his appearance, but capable to impose respect even to the great men of the world 

Strong in character, but with the kindness of the one  who knows austerity and penance 

Always in the presence of God even in the midst of his extraordinary external activity 

Slandered and admired, celebrated and persecuted.

And in the midst of so many wonders, like a gentle light which illumines everything, his devotion to the Mother of God.     

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CLARET, Antonio María. Autobiografía y Escritos complementarios,  2008.

EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE OF SPAIN, Sagrada Biblia, official edition, 2012. 

PARIS, María Antonia. Autobiografía in Escritos. 1985.  

SHOEKEL, Luis Alonso, Comentarios en La Biblia de Nuestro Pueblo, 2010.