Roc Homily – All Saints Day 2015

“Blessed are the Poor in Spirit”  –  It seems to me that this year our feast day is about Saint-Making. How? By receiving Jesus instruction (Sermon on the Mount) as disciples – those willing to learn today – who have been part of the crowd of the lame, blind, and deaf.

Today’s theme, as it were comes from Preface III for Sundays: “[O God]… we know that you came to the aid of mortal beings with your divinity, and even fashioned for us a remedy out of mortality itself, that the cause of our downfall might become the means of our salvation…!” That is, by opening up for us the mystery of our own vulnerability, we might be able and willing to be taught… “Blessed are the poor in spirit!” That could be us, should we attend to our experience. The good news is that God has made a remedy out of mortality itself!

The Feast of All Saints 

Homily by Roc O’Connor, SJ, associate pastor of the Church of the Gesu  (November 1, 2015)

Matthew 5:1-13 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.  He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven…”