All Saints at Work
It's All Saints Day. Most of us are likely at work. Ah, for those Medieval times when the great feast of All Saints meant not only a day of respite from work, but celebrations throughout Christendom.
Last Sunday in our thoughts to start the week off right, you'll find remarks about All Saints Day growing up, how All Saints and All Souls (tomorrow) were observed before Vatican II and the Novus Ordo rites displaced the traditional liturgical practices that preceded them. It's a time worth remembering.
But lacking both the Medieval celebrations and the traditional observances, here we are at work. And while our full attention and energy needs to be focused on the diligent fulfillment of the duties of our state of life, we should nevertheless develop the habit of seeking the intercession of the saints to assist us in our daily efforts. So most especially on this day devoted to our brothers and sisters of the Church Triumphant, don't forget the saints. If at all possible, let's take a quick break, maybe even close our eyes, and try unite ourselves to our intercessors, our friends in Heaven. I thought this passage from The Inner Life of the Soul might help us here:
"...does not one great secret of the saints' holiness lie in their spiritual intensity, their overwhelming realization of spiritual things, so that to us they seem like the angels to be 'seeing Him who is invisible'? With them, to love God is to love Him, and to love Him above all things. God first loved them; God died for them; they 'cannot give God less than all.'"
Let's re-read those words and take a moment to let them sink in. Do that and we can unite ourselves to those very saints on this, the day we observe to commemorate and celebrate them:
"With David they cry: 'My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God,' and with St. Augustine: 'O God, it is Thou, Thou alone art the life which is so blessed: to live happy is to rejoice in Thee, on account of Thee, and for Thee.' With St. Francis of Assisi, hour by hour they go repeating: 'My God and my All! my God and my All! With St. Gertrude: 'O Love, sweetest and and most tender of loves! never hast Thou failed nor forsaken me, O my God, my Love, my Star of start!' With the child Agnes: 'The world and all the pomps thereof have I despised for Jesus Christ, my Lord.' And with St. Paul, the grand apostle of the Holy Ghost, they join in that magnificent apostrophe which rings like a trumpet-call through all the ages of the Church: -
"'Who, then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? of persecution? or the sword?...But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'"
"We open our eyes and return to the dull, cold, visible world again. Ah, Lord God! can such poor wretches as we are, ever be saints like these? And from around the Throne an answer comes, from a great multitude whom none can number, - souls from all climes, with the angels who guarded them and brought them safe to heaven; - and their voices, like waves of a mighty sea, make answer: 'Yes.'
"...Let the carpenter at his bench love Him, as Joseph loved Him, toiling there; let the beggar love Him with Alexis and Labre, the servant with Zita in the kitchen, the mother with Anna and Monica, the young girl with Agnes, and the sick with Lidwina.
"There lies the secret of sanctity, to that marvelous intensity of devotion possessed by the saints...Not a tear of sacred sorrow, nor a breath of holy desire poured out in prayer to God, will ever be lost; but in God's own time and way it will be wafted back to us in clouds of mercy, and fall in showers of blessing on you and on those for whom you pray.
"Hear our Blessed Lord speak words never enough dwelt upon in our prayers and thoughts: - 'If you, being evil, know how to give gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from Heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?"
Last Sunday in our thoughts to start the week off right, you'll find remarks about All Saints Day growing up, how All Saints and All Souls (tomorrow) were observed before Vatican II and the Novus Ordo rites displaced the traditional liturgical practices that preceded them. It's a time worth remembering.
But lacking both the Medieval celebrations and the traditional observances, here we are at work. And while our full attention and energy needs to be focused on the diligent fulfillment of the duties of our state of life, we should nevertheless develop the habit of seeking the intercession of the saints to assist us in our daily efforts. So most especially on this day devoted to our brothers and sisters of the Church Triumphant, don't forget the saints. If at all possible, let's take a quick break, maybe even close our eyes, and try unite ourselves to our intercessors, our friends in Heaven. I thought this passage from The Inner Life of the Soul might help us here:
"...does not one great secret of the saints' holiness lie in their spiritual intensity, their overwhelming realization of spiritual things, so that to us they seem like the angels to be 'seeing Him who is invisible'? With them, to love God is to love Him, and to love Him above all things. God first loved them; God died for them; they 'cannot give God less than all.'"
Let's re-read those words and take a moment to let them sink in. Do that and we can unite ourselves to those very saints on this, the day we observe to commemorate and celebrate them:
"With David they cry: 'My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God,' and with St. Augustine: 'O God, it is Thou, Thou alone art the life which is so blessed: to live happy is to rejoice in Thee, on account of Thee, and for Thee.' With St. Francis of Assisi, hour by hour they go repeating: 'My God and my All! my God and my All! With St. Gertrude: 'O Love, sweetest and and most tender of loves! never hast Thou failed nor forsaken me, O my God, my Love, my Star of start!' With the child Agnes: 'The world and all the pomps thereof have I despised for Jesus Christ, my Lord.' And with St. Paul, the grand apostle of the Holy Ghost, they join in that magnificent apostrophe which rings like a trumpet-call through all the ages of the Church: -
"'Who, then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? of persecution? or the sword?...But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'"
"We open our eyes and return to the dull, cold, visible world again. Ah, Lord God! can such poor wretches as we are, ever be saints like these? And from around the Throne an answer comes, from a great multitude whom none can number, - souls from all climes, with the angels who guarded them and brought them safe to heaven; - and their voices, like waves of a mighty sea, make answer: 'Yes.'
"...Let the carpenter at his bench love Him, as Joseph loved Him, toiling there; let the beggar love Him with Alexis and Labre, the servant with Zita in the kitchen, the mother with Anna and Monica, the young girl with Agnes, and the sick with Lidwina.
"There lies the secret of sanctity, to that marvelous intensity of devotion possessed by the saints...Not a tear of sacred sorrow, nor a breath of holy desire poured out in prayer to God, will ever be lost; but in God's own time and way it will be wafted back to us in clouds of mercy, and fall in showers of blessing on you and on those for whom you pray.
"Hear our Blessed Lord speak words never enough dwelt upon in our prayers and thoughts: - 'If you, being evil, know how to give gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from Heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?"
Happy All Saints Day!
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