Sermon For All Saints Day

 

SERMON FOR ALL SAINTS DAY 


When you attend Mass, look around at the others who are gathered. They represent what could be called the “visible” church. You worship alongside of them. You might even ask one of them to pray for you as you deal with a particular problem or crisis. You’re thankful for the people who belong to the Visible Church. And, in likewise fashion, you’re thankful for those who constitute the “Invisible Church.”  Because you pay attention at Mass, you know that the one stream of worship is being blended with another stream of worship. The worship being produced by the Visible Church combines itself with a continual flow of worship that is being produced by the Invisible Church. It’s a team effort. 


So, who are the members of this Invisible Church? These are the faithful members who have gone before us. We don’t think of them as gone; rather, they have “gone ahead.”  They worship before God’s Heavenly throne. In life, they experienced the Lord through the Sacraments. Now they have the privilege of worshiping him face to face (see 1st John 3:2). This particular dimension of the church is not visible to us—at least not yet. We look forward to the day when we will join those who have preceded us. Until then, we do well to acknowledge them and perhaps even to invoke them. 


Typically, we invoke those who have received canonization. Being canonized means that they have officially attained “Sainthood.”  They each have their own feast-day, but this feast-day may or may not appear on the universal church calendar. The basic issue is that there are only 365 days in a year. Meanwhile, the current listing of saints has exceeded the 10,000 mark. It’s simply not possible to honor each individual saint as we navigate through the church year. It therefore becomes necessary to establish a collective celebration called “All Saints Day.”  We observe the Feast of All Saints on November 1st. 


It could be said that we want all of the saints to be honored. Along with honoring them, we may also choose to invoke one or more of the saints. In other words, you might ask a saint to be your prayer-partner. As was mentioned earlier, you have the option of asking a fellow parishioner to pray for you. In this way, you are drawing prayerful support from someone who belongs to the Visible Church. Additionally, you also have the option of calling upon those who belong to the Invisible Church. You’re not worshiping the saint. It’s merely a state of awareness. You are aware of the fact that the family of faith extends well beyond our time and place. You know about the segment that is visible to us. And you also know about the segment that is not visible to us. Using the “short-hand” approach, we refer to these segments as the Visible Church and the Invisible Church. 


H.G. Wells published a novel back in 1887, titled The Invisible Man. The main character, a man named Jack Griffin, has figured out how to become invisible. Unfortunately, it’s for the sake of pursuing a sinister purpose. He commits himself to being a menace, a threat to the common good. The concept of invisibility frightens us, when it’s being presented by an author like H.G. Wells. And yet, the concept of invisibility takes on a more benevolent aspect when we associate it with the date of November 1st. Feel free to celebrate the Invisible Church. Celebrate our collection of Saints—those who are familiar, along with those who are not quite so familiar. And furthermore, rest assured that they [unlike Jack Griffin] are on your side. 

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