Fr Aidan's Sermon – Sunday 2nd November 2003 – All Saints Day

So, we have the candles reminding us that we are surrounded by the Saints, and we have the Halloween lantern reminding us of Halloween - the eve of All Hallows, All Saints. The lantern represents one of the evil things such as witches, ghosts, things that go bump in the night; horrible faces that children love to frighten each other on this night. Trick and treat: don't worry about that; it's far too recent. We are talking about the real old days.

And why? Because children have to learn, and the church is always so realistic, and our Lord is. We have to learn that life is full of fear, that there are things that frighten us, and with children they are frightened by ghosts, by witches, by dragons, by all sorts of fantastic creatures. But they simply image forth such fears, which are part of being human. The anxieties which sometimes weigh us down, our inability to influence people for good, inability to influence the world. You have only to turn on the television and we see the mess the world is in and we can go through our lives ridden by anxiety; and that is why our Lord says (and so often that is the most frequent phase in the scriptures, I think it is over 160 times) he says "do not be afraid". The gospel is about not being afraid; we don't need to be afraid because the victory has been won over all evil. What ever it is Christ has won the victory and all those who follow Christ are equally victorious. And it is their feast that we celebrate today so we celebrate the triumph of good over evil.

Good has triumphed, so we should help our children to understand that the feast of All Saints is a celebration of the triumph of good. That's another reason why we shouldn't be tricking people; we should be treating people or receiving treats, because we are celebrating with the saints that surround us; and I hope that you realise that the men are divided from the women. I hope that it's not going to be like that in heaven, but in our church there are the ladies over here: Agnes, Monica, Teresa. And the men on the right: Gregory, Dominic and Albert, the statues there so they are reminding us of the Saints; and in the rose window there are a host of Saints, mainly our English ancestors. We are celebrating with them but also we are celebrating the goodness of ordinary people in every walk of life. Perhaps the hidden Saints our present Pope has tried to make less hidden. He has canonised more than any other Pope, but the reason that he has done it is to say that sanctity is possible, that holiness is possible in every walk of life.

So an amazing multitude and variety of Saints have been canonised during the present pontificate, the most recent, of course, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. And the description of the Saints, it is now Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and the description of the Saints is why I chose the revised standard version of the Gospel. I think it is much better than the Jerusalem version of the Gospel. "Blessed are" gives us a description of holiness. "Blessed are the gentle", and the gentleness of Mother Teresa bending over a man picked up from the streets of Calcutta in the last few hours of his life. Ministered by her, washed, caressed, prayed over by her, that gentleness, that meekness, captivated the world. There are hosts of over Saints. "Blessed are those who mourn", and I think of a lady I saw at Lourdes before the grotto with tears streaming down her face because her son had been born mentally handicapped, brain damaged and she had just heard that her beautiful daughter had got multiple sclerosis. "Blessed are those who mourn". "Blessed are the peace makers", and the student at Lancaster University talking to me having just got a very good degree in electrical engineering saying to me a lot of jobs I can never do in the arms industry; that's where the money is. But I can't as a Christian take a job there. Blessed are the peace makers. That American student who stood in front of the tank and was crushed to death by the Israel tanks a few months ago. A peace maker gone to Israel to show that there are Americans who want peace in the world. We all know people to whom the beatitudes apply for Christ plays in ten thousand places, the poet says: "lovely in limbs and eyes not his to the father through the features of men's faces".

So we are called upon this feast day to remember that we too have the vocation of holiness. We too are called to be saints John Paul the Second saying to us so powerfully that whatever the circumstances of our lives they are open to holiness, to becoming saints. And another poet whom I'm very fond of saw this very strongly in Easter 1916. W B Yeats in his poem talking about Easter 1916. Talking about ordinary people transformed: "I met them at close of day coming from counter or desk and grey 18th century houses. I passed them with polite meaningless words and lingered a while and said polite meaningless words and sort before I had done of a mocking tale or a jibe to please a companion around the fire at the club being certain that they and I but lived where motley was worn. All changed, all changed, utterly a terrible beauty is born." Later on in the same poem he says:" and what if excess of love bewildered them till they died? I write it out in verse McDonough and McBride and Connelly and Pearce now and time to be wherever green is worn are changed, changed, changed"

"Utterly a terrible beauty is born" - most powerful words capturing the heroism of those very ordinary men in 1916 who had a dream and who were as he says "bewildered by excess of love". That is what we are called to do today. The excess of the love of God to share the dream of the Saints, to be a light in the world, to bring the holiness of Christ among those that we meet every day.

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