Homily for the Solemnity of All Saints
Blanchette Catholic Center
1 November 2018
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“My life is not my own, I have given myself to Jesus. My life is not my own, I have given myself to him.”
A friend of mine from college was entering the Sisters of Life but needed to pay off her student loans. So she recorded an album of some acoustic music she wrote and sold them, and paid off her loans. She wrote that line in the chorus of “Kateri’s Song.” I love it because becoming a saint is really as simple as that. As complicated, nuanced, arduous…but, ultimately, as simple as that.
I know it can feel in these days like you are under attack, always under the microscope. It can be unnerving feeling like there is always someone snooping around here lately. I want to tell you all that I’m proud of you – we all are proud of you – and are glad for the help you provide us in helping us help the people in our parish become saints. Please don’t forget that your work helps people become saints.
Being a saint doesn’t mean levitating, praying 16 rosaries a day, or walking around on your knees. It means taking to heart and living intentionally the lines of the song: my life is not my own, I have given myself to Jesus. My life is not my own, I have given myself to him.”
St. Augustine famously wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest you.” In Latin, Augustine wrote, “…fecisti ad te”, which is literally translated, “you have made us toward you.” God has built each one of us with a very deep inclination to go toward him, to be in total union with him. This is why the Church teaches that heaven is not gold courses and slurpy machines, but total and unceasing union with him forever. Our hearts, therefore, are restless precisely because they have been built to only rest in him.
My life is not my own, I have given myself to Jesus. My life is not my own, I have given myself to him.
It really is as simple as that.