Matthew 5,1-12

There is really no point in observing and celebrating All Saints Day if our observance is only about the past and some holy people of long ago. In my own spirituality, I have stopped thinking of this day as if it was only about “them” – saints of our past, heroes long gone. The feast of All Saints, is so much more, and indeed about each one of us here today!

I like to think of this day as an annual checkup, a time to look within our lives, rather than only look around or look back. If you take your physical health seriously, you get an annual checkup. It is suggested that we see our dentist for a check on teeth, and even our cars, get tune-ups and an occasional check of the fluids. How should it be different for the spiritual side of our lives?

The Gospel today reveals the qualifications or standards for holiness. It sets the standards or the marks against which we need to check our lives. There are standards for blood pressure and blood sugar that get checked. Here in this Gospel are the minimum standards for spiritual health. Poor in spirit, meek, just, pure, and peaceful are the standards against which we measure our holiness.

Now, being poor in spirit has to do with how we relate to material things. Gospel poverty does not mean that we own nothing, but rather, that things do not own us. Things are not what’s important, relationships are what’s important.

Those who mourn are blessed not because they are actually mourning, but because they can mourn. If you are mourning and grieving, that means you have loved someone deep enough, to now feel the sorrow of separation. That is indeed a blessing!

Being meek does not mean being passive. It means being honest. It means knowing who you are and who you are not. It is a virtue that puts an end to reckless ambition and self-centered false pride.

Cultivating righteousness in the gospel sense, means having a passion for justice, not for one’s self (self-righteous), but for a passion for justice for those who never experience justice.

When mercy is found in one’s life, it is always about mercy given, not received.

Purity is not necessarily about innocence, as much as it is about being purified: it’s more like being “refined” that is to say, cleansed by sacrifice and service.

The truly holy, make peace everywhere they go because then never forget that we are all children of God, brothers and sisters in the human family that God has made in His own image and likeness. The peacemaking holy ones see the face of God in every one of God’s children.

So, this is the day, this is the time near the end of the year, to check up on things in our souls and our spiritual lives. Matthew gives us the checklist, because tomorrow’s feast of All Souls, is the reminder that if we have not checked ourselves on these things, a judgment time is coming for us all when someone else will judge, and we know very well what God will be looking for in those called to the eternal banquet of all saints.

May we all be there one day.