First Reading
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14
1. “Those who would speak the truth of the storm from inside the center of it cannot expect to live without being tossed around by winds.”* Can you think of others besides Oscar Romero and Dorothy Day who have suffered because they have spoken out for reform and who could now stand before the Lamb? Do you encounter resistance to the values of Christianity in your life?
2. Do you find opposition or indifference to Catholic values of social justice? What do you do, especially when people are suffering because of this unconcern? What would you like to do?
Second Reading
1 John 3:1-3
1. In Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, Emily says, “does anyone ever realize life while they live it ... every, every minute?” The stage manager responds, “No. Saints and poets maybe ... they do some.” Why might saints understand every minute of life? Can you relate it to the following line from this reading: “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”? Do the saints and poets know God?
2. If God is always present, hovering over us like a mother hen, why does God not just jump right in and save us from all the messes we get into?
Gospel:
Matthew 5:1-12a
1. Moses received the ten commandments on the mountain. Compare and contrast this with Jesus giving the
beatitudes in his sermon on the mount. Jesus is defining his own life with the beatitudes, isn’t he? What part
of your life do you define with beatitudes?
2. Pope Francis pointed out that all the saints were different from each other, and each developed their own
life of holiness according to their own personality. In what small or large way can you answer the universal
call to holiness with your personality? Vote? Recycle? Donate food for the hungry? Volunteer in a shelter?
Participate in a peace march? Run for political office to make change?
Dear brothers and sisters, choosing these, purity, meekness and mercy; choosing to entrust oneself to the Lord in poverty of spirit and in affliction; dedicating oneself to justice and peace—all this means going against the current in respect to this world’s mindset, in respect to the culture of possession, of meaningless fun, of arrogance against the weakest. This evangelical path was trodden by the Saints and Blesseds. Today’s solemnity that honors All Saints reminds us of the personal and universal vocation to holiness, and proposes sure models for this journey that each person walks in a unique way, an unrepeatable way. It is enough to think of the inexhaustible variety of gifts and real life stories there are among the saints: they are not all the same. … Each one of us can do it, take this path: meekness, meekness, please, and we will head toward holiness.
Angelus for All Saints
November 1, 2020
