Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Celebrate this Feast of All Saints, not to give them honor,
but knowing that we don't increase their glory or their happiness in heaven.
We give them honor so that we will be impressed upon our own heart
the importance of following their example and arriving at heaven as well.
We're today encouraged to long for holiness and sanctity,
to long for our true homeland in heaven,
and to long for...
To long for sanctity, to desire it.
And as St. Thomas Aquinas said to someone who asked him,
how can I become a saint?
He said, just need to want it.
And that's what we struggle with.
That's what we, so many of us, don't have.
And so we don't become saints because we really don't want it.
We have to want it all the time.
We can't just want it in a...
A first fervor in the beginning of our conversion or beginning of our religious life.
We have to want it every day, every day to the end of our life
so that we persevere and obtain the prize.
But we have to want it every day.
And if we want it, then we start making plans to realize it,
to obtain it, to fulfill our vocation.
We're all called to be saints.
We're not called to be secular, successful,
wealthy people, those who accomplish what they set their goal for in this world.
But we're called to arrive at heaven.
This world, it passes.
It's short and full of vanity and useless things many, many times.
Dangerous things, things that don't help us, don't help our neighbor.
It is sanctity that helps us the most.
It helps our neighbor and pleases God and promotes the glory of God.
This is what we're all about, sanctity.
Many of us have entered religious life for the purpose of becoming saints, only that.
The purpose of becoming saints, arriving at heaven, making it to heaven.
So this is what we're all about.
This is...
This is what we should live, think, breathe, desire, want with all our heart, soul, and strength.
Because this is what we are made for, and this is what will make us happy in this life and in the next.
So we have to follow this program of the Beatitudes.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, long for poverty, detachment from the world.
Blessed are those who mourn, realizing that sanctity...
Many of the saints have said sanctity is easy.
And in a certain sense, it is.
All we have to do is fulfill our duties, to do what we're called to do,
to do what our state in life demands of us,
and just to do it perfectly, as perfectly as we can.
And to pray for the grace to do it, that's the easy part.
The difficult part is that we have to keep striving every day.
We have to swim against the current.
We have to climb the hill of holiness.
And we have to fight our enemies, our invisible enemies,
the enemies of the church, the enemies of our soul, Satan and his minions.
And that's a struggle.
So it doesn't do us any good to say that it's easy in every sense.
It is easy enough that we can all accomplish it.
We can all become saints.
What we see in scriptures,
all the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the virgins and confessors,
all the beautiful saints throughout the history of the church,
they are not just statues to look at and admire.
They are real people who have done their duty.
And we have to do our duty, my duty, your duty.
We're all duty-bound to become saints.
And we need to focus on that, dwell on it, think about it day and night,
and figure out how to do it in my life.
How do I become a saint in my little way or big way, if God wants to figure it out,
to meditate upon these beatitudes,
and to realize that it does, in a major sense, involve carrying the cross.
I need to carry the cross.
And the beatitudes do speak to us about the difficulty of sanctity.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be saved.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be saved.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
We will mourn over the sadness of this world, the things that we lose,
the sufferings we endure, but everything for the love of God,
patiently, with resignation, with the help of God.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Those who mourn in the right way, carrying our cross,
willingly accepting for the love of God and for our neighbor,
blessed are those who are meek and don't give in to their anger,
their impatience, their annoyances, and that's not easy.
But we can do it with the grace of God,
always asking for it and striving for that virtue.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for holiness.
Again, there's that desire.
We need to want holiness, righteousness.
We need to want God.
We need to want heaven.
One of the saints said that,
one of the punishments in purgatory is not desiring heaven,
not thinking about it enough in this life.
That's a fault, not to long for heaven,
not to pray for the virtue of hope,
which is that longing, hungering, and thirsting for heaven,
not just the joys and the paradise of heaven,
but who is there, God, God who is our heaven, Jesus,
and the company of Mary,
who is another little heaven within a heaven,
and the joy to be in the company of all the angels and saints
who are marvels in themselves,
marvels of the glory of God in them.
So hungering and thirsting for that
is not, in that sense, difficult.
It's something that's extremely attractive.
Heaven is extremely attractive.
It should be, and if we're not attracted to it,
because we don't think about it,
we don't meditate on it,
we don't pray for the grace, the virtue of hope.
Blessed are those who are merciful.
Our Lord said that if we don't forgive our neighbor,
we will not be forgiven either.
And if we're not forgiven,
we're not going to be free from our sins.
We can't enter heaven if we don't,
if we're not free from our sins.
So we have to be merciful.
And again, that's not easy.
We have to struggle to forgive,
and to pray and work at forgiving our neighbors
so that we will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart.
It's not easy to be clean of heart,
especially in this culture, in this day,
and with all the temptations to impurity.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
We will see God if we are clean of heart.
If we are not, we won't see God.
We want to see God in this life,
in the Eucharist, in our neighbor, in the scriptures,
in our heart, in our mind, in our soul, where God is.
We will see God if we are clean of heart,
if we free ourselves from all impurity,
all occasions of sin, everything, all occasions,
not flirting with danger,
but freeing ourselves totally from all impurity.
That's what God wants.
He wants perfection, cleanness, immaculateness.
And certainly Our Lady, who is the Immaculate One,
will help us.
And if we entrust ourselves to her
and ask her for that virtue of purity
and cleanness of heart.
Blessed are the peacemakers, to always strive for peace
and avoiding conflicts and arguments and strife,
but always striving to bring peace
in our relations with our neighbor.
Again, not an easy thing, but something we can all do
if we strive at it, we work towards it,
and we pray for the grace to do this.
All these things, we have to pray for the grace.
We can't become saints on our own.
We have to pray for that, pray for that,
desire it, want it, and we're not gonna pray
for what we don't want, we don't desire.
Blessed are those who are persecuted.
And again, this is a promise from our Lord.
We have to be ready for persecution,
welcome it, live with it, with rejoicing, as our Lord said,
and blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you
and utter every kind of evil against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.
We need to have a certain joy in persecution
and the difficulties we will face with our neighbor
or even with our friends sometimes
who may misunderstand us.
We carry that cross, we carry the cross, as our Lord says,
our Lord said, deny yourself, take up your cross,
and follow me.
This is our way to heaven, to follow the example of Jesus
and follow the example of Our Lady and to follow Our Lady.
Our Lady is that saint maker.
If we let her make saints of us, we can't become saints
without Our Lady's help, guidance, all the way through
our life, all the way through the different stages
of holiness.
We have to cling to Our Lady, ask for her help,
ask for her enlightenment, so we need to desire, pray for,
and know how to become saints.
So we have to pray for how, pray for the answers,
pray for the wisdom to become saints,
pray to be able to understand these beatitudes,
understand the teachings of Jesus, and we all can,
we all will if we ask, God will not ask for us,
but we will if we ask.
Ask sanctity from us if it's not possible.
So it is possible.
We need to just pray for that possibility, that ability
to follow Jesus, Mary, and all the angels,
all the saints who have gone before us and show us,
have shown us the way.
Praise be Jesus and Mary.
Amen.
Thank you again God.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.