Solemnity of All Saints
"Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven."
Today is the Solemnity of All Saints, and in the Gospel reading we hear Jesus preach the famous Beatitudes. The first few Beatitudes to me always felt like a verbal hug from Jesus to his followers. Yet then he turns seemingly darker. At a glance, the warm hug seems to be replaced by a frightful foreboding, as Jesus isn't saying "if they insult you and persecute you" but rather "when they insult you and persecute you."
I once heard a talk by Fr Mike Schmitz who characterized the two ways to live life as a Christian: trying to be a "nice" person, and striving for sainthood. In my own life, the difference for me is reading into Jesus' words as "if", and allowing him to transform me as I realize he really does mean "when" here. The two ways to live a Christian life here are distinguished by one being lukewarm, and the other being a life on fire with love. Which sounds more appealing to you? Which sounds more bold and daring? Which ones sounds harder?
In my leap of faith, if I am simply a "nice" person, not rocking the boat, checking the boxes of good deeds I know I need to do, running away from conflict, or failing to step into my neighbor's shoes to embrace their brokenness and my own, I just miss sainthood and instead catch the slippery ledge of "just good enough" instead. So many times I think to myself "sainthood is too hard, it is for holier people than me". This struggle against my own temptation to self-pity and apathy has decorated my walk with God like Halloween instead of All Saints Day. God's forgiveness, though, is my ever-present salve, though. I know that when I fall, I can get up with His help. It is that faith in a God who saves that allows me to praise God instead of lamenting what seems like a futile effort to be holy.
Jesus saying "when" disarms that temptation to despair. Yes, we will undergo persecution, at times from within ourselves, at times from the people around us, and at times from a world crippled by sin. The only answer for me is to be all in for Jesus, to hold nothing back from Him, including my deepest, gravest sins. When I look at my great inspirations, the likes of the apostle Paul, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Francis Xavier, St. John XXIII, Mother Theresa and St. John Paul II, I don't see nice people. Maybe others do, but I think as Christians we have the opportunity to see them more genuinely, to see the fire of love spreading from them outward to the people they inspired. I know that I too have the opportunity to inspire others, but I have to let the Holy Spirit work in my life for that to happen.
So I have to ask myself each day: am I going to be a nice person today, or am I going to be a saint?
Matt Rubio