Ruminations of an Irascible Hermit.: The hope of the pure in heart

Monday, November 1, 2021

The hope of the pure in heart

Happy & Blessed Solemnity of All Saints. May the fellowship we share here in Christ through the Church be brought to the joy and glory of the Communion of Saints in heaven!

In the 2nd Reading for Mass today we have this beautiful passage from the 1st letter of St John where he talks about us being the Children of God. What better way to emphasise who and what the saints are than this - God’s beloved children!

All of us who are baptised have been reborn as Children of God, having our relationship to the Father restored through Jesus. We are all saints in the making if we persevere in the faith, loving God, following him as best as we can through the power of the Sacraments and living lives of purity. The purity we are called to is the ascetical life - denying ourselves to take up our cross to follow Jesus. Just as Jesus was just and righteous, so we too are called to be just and righteous in Jesus’ name. This is the great calling and mission we all have, the universal call to holiness.

The word “saint” means Holy one. We know through our faith that the Saints in heaven have already been purified and see God face to face in the Beatific Vision. We too are called to this. That is why the reading says “what we will be has not been revealed” - because we are all still saints in the making!

In the Creed we profess in believing in the “Communion of Saints” - this refers to the Saints glorified in heaven, those suffering in purgatory and those of us here still on earth, the Church Militant on its pilgrimage back to the Father. This is the totality of the Mystical Body of Christ - The Church.

Our hope is to rejoice in heaven with all the Saints in the presence of the Holy & Undivided Trinity, sharing eternal life, bliss and happiness as we see God face to face. This has been the hope of all the saints and it is the glory of the currents saints already in heaven.

Let us strive for the purity of heart that Jesus calls us to the in the Beatitudes that was proclaimed in the Gospel today at Mass, for the pure of heart shall see God.

As the prayer after Communion for today says:

As we adore you, O God, who alone are holy
and wonderful in all your Saints,
we implore your grace,
so that, coming to perfect holiness in the fullness of your love,
we may pass from this pilgrim table
to the banquet of our heavenly homeland.
Through Christ our Lord

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Disclaimer

Please note. I am a Catholic layman, not a qualified theologian or philosopher. What I say and write here are my own personal thoughts and ideas, although I always try to conform my writings to the Magisterium of the Church.

I- with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the symbol of faith: namely,

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith I believe as well everything contained in God's word, written or handed down in tradition and proposed by the church--whether in solemn judgment or in the ordinary and universal Magisterium--as divinely revealed and called for faith.

I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing that is proposed by that same church definitively with regard to teaching concerning faith or morals.

What is more, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic Magisterium even if they proclaim those teachings in an act that is not definitive.