From every nation, race, tribe and language!

Apocalypse 7:2-4,9-14

I, John, saw another angel rising where the sun rises, carrying the seal of the living God; he called in a powerful voice to the four angels whose duty was to devastate land and sea, ‘Wait before you do any damage on land or at sea or to the trees, until we have put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.’ Then I heard how many were sealed: a hundred and forty-four thousand, out of all the tribes of Israel. After that I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language; they were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands. They shouted aloud, ‘Victory to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels who were standing in a circle round the throne, surrounding the elders and the four animals, prostrated themselves before the throne, and touched the ground with their foreheads, worshipping God with these words, ‘Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen.’ One of the elders then spoke, and asked me, ‘Do you know who these people are, dressed in white robes, and where they have come from?’ I answered him, ‘You can tell me, my lord.’ Then he said, ‘These are the people who have been through the great persecution, and they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb.’

Food for thought!

All year round we are celebrating feasts of saints. Why then is it necessary to set apart a day to celebrate the feast of all saints? Well, beside the handful of saints whose feast days we know and celebrate on specific days in the year, there are countless other saints and martyrs, men, women and children united with God in the heavenly glory whom we do not know and do not celebrate. Many of these would be our own parents and grand-parents, relatives, friends and others who were heroic women and men of faith, in their own way. Today we keep their honourable memory. 

In many ways, therefore, today's feast can be called the feast of the Unknown Saint, in line with the tradition of the Unknown Soldier. We celebrate what today's first reading calls " a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language; they were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands. They shouted aloud, ‘Victory to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" (Rev 7:9).

According to these words, the saints we celebrate today were men and women like the rest of us; they spoke our language, ate our food, went through our trials. They were people like the rest of us (people from every nation, race, tribe and language). Where we are now they used to be, and where they are now we hope to be someday. 

As Christians we know that a person's life story is not limited to what happens to them between the day they are born and the day they die. Our story starts before we are born (in the mother's womb), and goes beyond the day we die, to all eternity. That is why we do not simply forget people after they die. Please, today, find some time to remember your dead heroes! 

Unfortunately, our reaching the fullness of life with the saints does not happen automatically. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). How do we live a life of doing the will of our heavenly Father? The answer is given us in today's gospel, the Beatitudes, where Jesus gives his followers a road map to a happy eternity. 

What Jesus does is to tell us that sainthood or happiness is achievable. We cannot be everything in the Beatitudes that Jesus proposes to us. But all of us can be something. We can be help the poor, we can console those who mourn, we can be meek, and we can work for justice. The challenge is to be compassionate people, that is, men and women who are pure in heart, who are peacemakers in our dealings with one another, in our families and in the society at large, even when this approach to things exposes us to ridicule and persecution. 

Today we are invited to walk the path of the saints, the way of the Beatitudes. As Jesus taught us this week, let nothing and nobody stop us in doing the good we can do. The example of the saints and their prayers encourage us and help us on. St Augustine found it hard to live the Beatitudes, but when he read the lives of the saints he said, "What these ordinary women and men have done, why not me?" Why not? "For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:13). Praise and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen.