November 1st - All Saints Day 2018

Who is your favourite super hero? What’s their super power? What super power would you like to have? It might be invisibility; being able to fly; shooting webs when you need to (like Spider Man!). Today we celebrate All Saints Day and, in a way, we think of the Saints as the superheroes of the church. They seem to be the ones who discovered the real. We look up to them for guidance and for prayerful help; they are like guides holding a torch for us to show us the way. We are all called to be Saints, called to be ‘holy’ like them. It often seems impossible however. We might have a favourite saint who we pray to and who we feel intercedes for us when we need it the most. So today is a very special feast as we remember those very special people who have shown us how to be better followers of Christ.

Today is also about celebrating those saints who are with us on our life journeys, those saints we know personally and love. Saints have to work against the grain and be counter cultural. Saints are all around us, pointing the way for us, teaching us something about God through their lives. They are quietly working in our communities, our families and some are well known public figures, shining examples of the love of God in our world. We might pray today especially for those who are living saints in our own lives and for the grace to be more like those ‘superhero’ saints who point us towards Christ through their lives.

All Saints Day ~ Matthew 5:1-12.

Today we celebrate All Saint’s Day and to celebrate this feast the Gospel we read is The Beatitudes. It is an interesting passage to spend time with. Jesus is not moralising in this text, he is not telling us what to do. He is stating facts and we are invited into each Beatitude and given space to draw our own conclusions. The Beatitudes may shock us, but they force us to think and to ponder the paradox in each statement. There is much human experience within each one and as you read them you may recognise your local or ‘urban saints’.

This week can you spend time with each beatitude? There are seven so one per day is totally doable. Who are the peacemakers around you? Who are those who are persecuted? Who is mourning? The beatitudes call us to live life more fully, to see all as connected. Saints are all around us, pointing the way for us, teaching us something about God through their lives. They persevere in all they do for their families and communities, especially those on the margins. They are the blessed ones.

“Saints make our hypocrisy so apparent that we want to change our lives – not because of guilt but because we want to be alive, we want to be more like Jesus…[they] leave us the scent of God, the aroma of Christ. In God’s flirting with humanity, God occasionally drops a handkerchief – and these handkerchiefs are called saints” (Shane Claiborne).