Holy, Holy Kith and Kin

We are members of the Holy Family.

Revelation 7:2-4,9-14, 1 John 3:1-3 and Matthew 5:1-12 for the Solemnity of All the Saints.

Not all of us have biological siblings or biological children.

However, every one of us has a biological father and a biological mother.

So, through them, each of us has a bodily connection to the whole past history of the human race.

The Word of the Lord names Adam and Eve as the father and mother of all humankind.

However, God who created us has come in the person of Christ to enter and join the human race.

Because he is God who made each of us, Christ who has personally entered the human race takes over the place of Adam and Eve as the beginning of the human race.

Christ is the New Beginning of the human race.

He is our new beginning spiritually.

He is also our new beginning physically.

When he lived and died entirely for the glory of the Father, Christ gave a new beginning of spiritual glory to the human race.

When Christ rose physically from the dead, he became a new beginning for our human bodies and spirits.

In his Eucharistic Flesh and Blood, Christ feeds us our own new beginning.

In his Eucharist, Christ is the new beginning of our bodies, our minds and our spirits.

We are baptized into God through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

We are anointed with the Father’s same Holy Spirit that he shares with Christ his Son.

Together with the saints, you and I are children of God and of the Church.

We have one faith, one Lord, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all.

As God sees it, the angels in heaven with the holy men and holy women, who have gone to him before us, they are truly our siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, parents and ancestors.

We have the saints as our family in heaven, and we are their family on earth.

We are members of the Holy Family.

In Christ, the saints have the same new beginning that you and I have.

They live with the Lord in glory.

They are concerned to help and save us.

In the lives they lived on earth, the saints were mirrors of the glory of God, as you and I are also called to be.

The saints each had different gifts and missions on earth, as you and I do; but together with the saints we all have one reward in heaven.

Now in heaven, they already live with the Lord in glory, a glory that they pray we will see and enjoy for ourselves together with them.

We trust and celebrate that the saints are concerned for our salvation.

They pray for us to receive the forgiveness and love of God.

They pray that we might live the glory of God even now on earth.

The glory of God: we eat and drink it in the Body and Blood of Christ.

Turn. Love. Repeat.