happy ... Nov. 1 All Saints 2014

Today we celebrate all saints day.  It is that day once a year when we come together to remember all the saints in heaven, saints with a small letter s and the saints with the capital letter S.  Today we remember all the citizens of heaven, a citizenship which we also aim to attain when our death comes.

Today our gospel reminds us of something very important to us as believers of Jesus which we most often forget.

First our gospel tells, commands us to be happy.  It says blessed – blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they who mourn, blessed are the meek.  Blessed means be happy.  Our life in Jesus is not a sad life.  It is a happy life.  Yes from time to time we will be burdened by so many cares and difficulties, every now and then we will be weighed down by so many anxieties, but in the end we are basically a happy people.

Second, why should we be a happy people?  We are a happy people because of the things God promised us – we will be admitted to the kingdom, we will be comforted, we will inherit the land, we will see God, we will be shown mercy, we will be called children of God.  We are a happy people not because of what is, not because of what we have, no, rather we are a happy people because of what we will become, because of what we will attain and because of what will be given to us.

Life has meaning today because of what is in store for us in the future.

If our end is in this life, if our goal is in this life, if our eyes are only set in this life then we are sad because all of these will end in death.  We are mortals.  We can only prolong life but we cannot live forever. 

But our goal is heaven, our citizenship is heaven, we are all called to become saints and whatever we do today we do with our end and goal in mind.   That is why despite everything we are happy, we are a happy people, we should be a happy people.