Saint Paul begins his Epistle to the Romans by declaring that he is “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle” writing “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints.”  And to the Church at Corinth Saint Paul says that he is “Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus,” and that he is writing “to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  . . . “Called to be saints”.  Called by God to be sanctified; . . . called by God to be sacred persons; to manifest God’s holiness, God’s cleanness, God’s ordered affections; . . . called by God to manifest His kindness to even the ungrateful and the selfish.  Called by God to manifest His Son’s pure and wise counsel to deceived and darkened and restless humanity . . . so that all persons might come to joy and simplicity and chastity and peace.  The Church everywhere is called to be sacred persons.

    Saint Paul says that we are all called to be saints.  He does not say that we are endowed with sanctity simply because God loves us.  The reason we are called to be sacred persons and not simply made to be sacred persons, as if by irresistible magic, . . . is that God loves us so much that He has reverence for us.  And God’s reverence for us endows us with the dignity of choice; . . . God’s reverence for us permits us to remain where we are . . . or to choose to journey toward Him.   And so God calls us to be saints.  God calls us to a journey which has a purpose.  It is a journey toward Him so that we might be imbued with His sanctity by continually embracing it.  Therefore, our journey toward God is a kind of pilgrimage.  A holy trek to a holy purpose.

    God’s call to pilgrimage begins at the Baptismal Font.  Some of us, feeling the tender pressure of God’s love, come to it with a will for the journey.  Many of us are brought to the Font by parental solicitude . . . and must discover God’s invitation.  However we come to our pilgrimage toward God, it is by God’s call that the journey is begun, and what we are called to is to be saints.

    Now, . . . as much as I say it -- that we are all called to be saints; . . . as much as I say it, the tendency among many, many people is not to believe it.  The tendency among many, many people is to take the witness of Holy Scripture that we are called to sainthood not at all seriously.  Perhaps they think it holy rhetoric.  Perhaps they think it the quaint innocence of a simpler age.  But whatever they think, . . . it is the tendency among many, many people to regard a “saint” as a special class of Christian; a class to which most of us don’t and will never belong.  I guess it’s because somehow the myth has grown up that people who “make it” to sainthood are somehow “better” than most people:  they live exemplary lives free from the taint of the really big sins; and saints think holy thoughts far above our own preoccupations with worldly concerns.  And so, most of us regard “Saints” as a better class of Christian than run-of-the-mill, common churchfolk.

    But is that really so?  Take, for instance, Saint Augustine.  Saint Augustine was a bishop in Northern Africa who was much loved by his people for his simplicity of life and his care for the poor.  He used Church money to clothe all the poor of his diocese once a year and on several occasions had Church vessels melted down in order to redeem captives.  Saint Augustine was a master of the celibate religious life, and he founded a religious community of women for whom he wrote the Augustinian Rule, afterward adopted by many religious communities down to this present day.  And yet, . . . from about age sixteen to age thirty-two Augustine was a master of the dissolute life, which included liaison with a woman, which one biographer calls an “irregular but stable” relationship (in our day she would be known as his “fiance”) . . . an “irregular but stable” relationship which included the birth of a child.  . . . Rather a common-place beginning for a saint don’t you think?  The untidy and (even) sordid nature of Augustine’s early years hardly seem to qualify him for elevation to a class of Christian which is beyond the reach of ordinary churchfolk!

    Of course, it might be argued that Augustine’s embarrassments happened before his Baptism.  Well, then, consider Saint Patrick.  Patrick was born in Britain shortly after Augustine’s conversion.  He was a Roman citizen, whose grandfather was a Christian priest, and his father was a deacon.  Patrick was baptized as an infant, but of his own admission, Patrick’s arrival at adolescence had the same character as my own, and perhaps your, arrival at adolescence:  Patrick had disdain for the Church’s authority and was indifferent toward Her teaching.  Or as he tells us in his Confessio, he didn’t really believe in God, and he found priests foolish.  Does this sound like anyone you’d nominate to be canonized as your local saint?

    Now, I know that things changed for Patrick after he was kidnapped at age sixteen and lived as slave and shepherd in the Irish hills for six years, nearly naked and always hungry.  His forced asceticism turned his heart to God, and God made of him a mystic.  So it might be argued that adolescence is not when anyone, even a saint, shows his or her ultimate dignity.  Alright, then I give you Saint Columcille, also known as Columba.

    Saint Columba was born in Ireland some sixty years after the death of Patrick and educated in a number of very fine Irish monastic schools.  He was ordained to the priesthood, and, at age twenty-five, began a career of preaching and founding monastic communities among the unevangelized Irish clans.  By the time he was forty-one years of age . . . some forty monastic foundations could claim Saint Columba as their patron.  Certainly an achievement of saintly proportions.  And yet, . . . there is the matter of what one biographer calls Columba’s “intensity”.  Among his intensities was a passion for manuscripts.  As a student, Columba had secretly copied a psalter which had been prepared by Saint Jerome and which now belonged to his master.  The deed was found out, however, and brought before King Diarmait, who ruled against Columba keeping the copy he had made, and he was forced to hand it over to the king.  Some sixteen years later . . . Columba was at a monastery in Connaught when a local resident came to Columba for sanctuary, which was granted.  The king, however, (King Diarmait) ordered that the felon be dragged from the monastery and killed, . . . which he was.  In response to this, Columba rallied his clansmen to avenge this arrogance toward God, . . . and at the Battle of Cuil Dremne King Diarmait was thoroughly defeated and some 3,000 of his army perished by the sword.  Among the spoils of battle which came to the victorious Columba . . . was his copy of the contested psalter; suggesting that more than God’s honor was at stake for Columba when he declared war on the king who had judged against him some sixteen years ago.  Now, . . . would you consider that bearing resentment for an insult to your honor for sixteen years while biding your time to exploit an opportunity to take revenge and gain possession of a coveted book at the expense of three thousand lives . . . would you consider such a thing to be a quality of character belonging to someone of a saintly class far above the qualities of the ordinary Christian?

    I have told you these sordid facts about three saintly men in order to disabuse you of the error that the saints of the Church belong to a “purer” class of Christian than you.  The truth is that we are all God’s servants on a pilgrimage together to become His saints.  Along the way we encourage one another.  And one day a year is particularly set aside to intentionally give our heavenly Father thanks for the journey and for the encouragement.  We have done this sort of thing for nearly eighteen hundred years.  The Church at Smyrna did it when their bishop Polycarp was martyred in 156 A.D.  We have a letter from them which reads,

we . . . took up his bones . . . and laid them in a suitable place; where the Lord will permit us to assemble together, as we are able, in gladness and joy, to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom for the commemoration of those that have already fought in the contest and for the training and preparation of those who shall do so hereafter.

This Festival of All Saints is “for the commemoration of those that have already fought in the contest” . . . and for our own training and preparation to do likewise.

    Each of us has a saint whose sacred life and priceless words have trained and strengthened us for our pilgrimage together toward God.  Remember all the saints and especially your saint before God with gratitude today.  And pray for their continued spiritual help and God’s grace for yourself; . . . for, each of us, in our turn, are or shall be someone else’s saint.  Because a saint is not a special class of believer.  Augustine and Patrick and Columcille are all the same wretched sinners in God’s sight as we are, . . . and yet, as our gracious Father called Augustine and Patrick and Columcille to be saints, so He calls each one of us.  And He confides in each of us, . . . to be instruments of His ineffable grace.