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ARCHBISHOP BELTRAN

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October 25, 2009

The Good News...

           ...Saints Alive!

Several days ago, Pope Benedict XVI canonized the 19th century missionary to the lepers. Over the last century, most Catholic people read or heard the amazing heroic story of Saint Damien. He was a Belgian-born priest who served the ostracized lepers who were banished to live on Molokai in Hawaii. Saint Damien eventually contracted leprosy himself but continued to serve the leper colony until his death at the age of 49. We who read his story were convinced that he was indeed a saint in heaven. Now we are assured so by the Church.

Several years ago, we here in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City began the long and tedious process for the canonization of one of our own missionary priests, Rev. Stanley Rother of Okarche. Father Rother served as a missionary priest in the village of Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala. On July 28, 1981, Father Rother was killed in the parish house next to the church of Santiago Atitlan. Those of us who knew Father Rother or even later read his story are also convinced that he was martyred for the faith and is therefore in heaven. We have begun the difficult canonization process be-cause we believe and pray that if it is God’s Will, Father Rother shall be proclaimed by the Universal Church as a martyr and saint.

Saint Damien and Father Rother were two ordinary young men who, because of their faith and dedication, gave up their lives for God’s people.  Their lives and their deaths were neither vain nor futile. Each of them loved God first and foremost and their neighbor as themselves. Each of them made daily humble efforts   to fulfill God’s Will by serving God’s people.

Next Sunday, Nov. 1, we will celebrate the Feast of All Saints. We will commemorate not only all the great men and women, young and old, who have been recognized by the Church as saints in heaven, but in-deed all the people who are actually in heaven with God. Being in heaven in the constant Presence of God is not a foreign concept to our human nature. Sanctity is the original universal vocation for all people. We were created by God in His image and likeness so that we could receive His love and love Him in return. Then, someday, after completing our pilgrimage on this earth, we would rejoice with God in heaven forever.

What makes sanctity look irrelevant or not attainable or even non-desirable is sin. Sin is disobedience to God, turning away from God or rejecting God’s plan for the human family. God created us out of love to receive His love and love Him in return. Love must be free. It can never be forced or imposed on anyone. To love God, to rejoice in His presence forever, is the plan of God for all of us. But He never forces us. He lovingly calls and invites and waits for our free response of love.

Not only did God create us in His own image and likeness to live with Him forever as saints, but He also re-deemed us when, by sin, we rejected His plan. Moreover, in the New Covenant, He gave us a visible Church to guide and lead us with a sacramental system which He empowers. Thus, each of us has been baptized, which means that we have been sanctified. In baptism our sins were washed away. We were reborn and filled with the Grace of God.

Following our baptism, through the use and practice of the other sacraments, especially the Eucha-rist,  we  are  forgiven,  healed,  nurtured   and strengthened  to continue our pilgrimage of life on this earth to life everlasting in   heaven. We are created by God to become saints. We are called by God to sanctity. We enjoy the fullness and perfection of our human nature only when we enter the eternal kingdom of God to rejoice with Him forever. We must live as saints of God on this earth now so as to be prepared to be saints in heaven forever. What an absolutely final tragedy it would be to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of our immortal souls. Therefore, hear and respond to the invitation of Jesus to be a living saint now and forever.