Hallowed


 

Everyone wants to be someone else at least sometimes.  Halloween is a great time when we can dress up, act like someone else, and hide behind make-up or a mask.  Possibly we want to impress someone with a fancy costume?  Perhaps we want to scare the socks off of someone we owe?  Maybe we want to express a part of our personality that we otherwise like to keep hidden?  Armchair psychologists apply here please:)


All hallows eve precedes all hallows day, or all saints day.  Sadly our culture focuses too much on the fun celebration of Halloween.  We tend to neglect the important  aspect of remembering the great saints who have gone before.  Don’t get me wrong, Halloween is a blast. In fact I would guess that many of the saints are thrilled that we enjoy ourselves every October 31st.  It is sad not because we have fun, but because we may miss many great lessons that the saints can teach us.  There is little honest reflection on what it means to be a saint.


Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…”. (Matthew 5:11,12 NIV)


What does it take to be a saint?  Most of us do not even want to contemplate the possibility.  We may think of a saint as someone who is super nice all the time.  “Oh she is such a saint, she never gets mad does she?”  We may think of a saint as someone who has little fun in life.  “Saints just like to sit at home and pray, don’t they?”  Or we may think of a saint as someone who lives a perfect life and never makes a mistake.  “It is just too hard to be a saint, don’t you think?  Who would want to be that perfect anyway?”


The word saint is best defined as, “someone who is set apart as holy for the Lord.”  It comes from a root word used for other church words like sacristy (Holy things), sanctuary (holy place), and sanctus (holy, holy, holy).  Christians differ on who should be called a saint.  Should there be a list of specific people designated by the church who meet a certain criteria, or are all a part of the sainthood of believers?  It is interesting to note that those who have been designated as saints by other Christian’s have a few things in common.  First, they are very flawed human beings.  In fact the grace of their life is not that they reach some level of perfection, but rather realize with increased awareness how frail, vulnerable, and human they really are.  This makes them extremely interesting to learn about.  They are an inspiration to many.  Second, they are graced by a humility to point not to their lives but instead to Jesus.


Jesus made it very clear multiple times that it is not easy to be one of his disciples.  We are directed to pick-up our cross and follow him.  We are asked to reject worldly values.  We are called to rejoice when others revile us on account of Him.  Jesus probably would not do well as a modern day church greeter.  Who would want to join that group?  Except if we closely examine sainthood we come to the realization that following Christ is losing ourselves in a love greater than all.  To be a saint for God is difficult because we have to let go of our agenda for life, but at the same time it is more glorious than we can possibly imagine.  For being a saint is not about being nice, boring, or perfect.  In fact it is not about us at all.  All are saints when we trust Christ to guide us, to be who we are created to be.  Children of God.


Today is God’s Present!


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