Happy Feast Day, everyone! All Saints Day is a reminder that God has made us blessed. See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. (1 John 3:1) We don’t ordinarily think of ourselves as saints. In the popular mind a saint goes to Church alot, prays all the time and smells a little of incense. Jesus gives two lists of things that make for saints in St. Matthew’s Gospel and in neither list is going to Church or even praying mentioned. The Beatitudes (Matthew 5) describe the blessed, the saintly, as poor in spirit, hungering for justice, merciful, peacemakers. In the Parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25) the blessed are those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick. Church-going and prayer are not an end in themselves but meant to empower us to live a life of the Beatitudes and loving service. According to Confucius, “When the wise man points toward the moon the fool looks at his finger.” The saints point us toward God so God is where we find blessing.
