School Homily: All Saints’ Day

November 1, 2004


There is a special reference book that you can find in some libraries called Who’s Who in American Business. If you see it, open it up to the B’s and you’ll find a listing for B.T. Belskis, the president and chief executive officer of a small company in Stockport, Ohio.

As you’d probably guess, you have to be pretty important to get into the pages of Who’s Who. You have to be a successful businessman. You must be a leader in your community. Involved in charities and clubs. You have to be a good and honest person. Respected and admired by your friends.

And in B.T.’s case, it didn’t hurt to be able to track down a raccoon or bark with some authority.

B.T.’s real name, you see, was Belle — and she was one of our blue tick coonhound dogs when I lived back on the farm before becoming a priest. B.T.: blue tick. Get it?

My brother, Greg, thought it would be a real hoot to try to get the dog listed in Who’s Who, so he made just a few changes in her list of important accomplishments. And we couldn’t believe it when it was published!

We had lots of laughs when a telephone salesman would call and ask to speak with B.T. One guy even said he had met B.T. on a business trip and was told to call and set up an appointment!

I guess this all goes to show that by being a little clever, ordinary folks — and maybe even dogs! — can make their way into a famous book like Who’s Who.

While it’s great that ordinary folks can get into an important book, it’s even more wonderful that ordinary folks can get into heaven and live forever with God! And that’s exactly what we celebrate today on All Saints’ Day.

I’m sure you can all name lots of saints who have been canonized or declared saints by the Pope: St. Michael, St. Elizabeth, St. James, St. Paul, St. Matthew, St. Katherine, St. Nicholas, St. Francis, and many, many others.

But there are loads more saints that just those! Heaven is filled with saints — men and women, boys and girls, and even tiny babies — who died and are now with Jesus enjoying the happiness of heaven — where they will be forever and ever.

Some people think that to be a saint, you can never make a mistake or commit a sin. If that were true, there wouldn’t be any saints at all! All of us do things wrong — every day of our life.

No, getting to be a saint means that we really have to love God a lot and try our best to show Him we love Him. So if bad things happen to us — like if we get sick or hurt, or if someone close to us dies, or if we don’t do as well on a test or in a game as we’d like — if these kinds of things happen, we try to remember that God is there and He loves us very much… so we can be a little bit more patient and not be too quick to complain.

Getting to be a saint also means that we always try to see other people the way Jesus would… and treat them the way Jesus would. That means that we try not to tease people or pick on them, especially our brothers and sisters. We don’t call people names or say bad mean things about them behind their back. We don’t hit them or throw things at them. We don’t lie to them or take things from them that don’t belong to us. In other words, we treat them just the way we’d hope they would treat us — and just the way we’d hope they would treat Jesus Himself.

Getting to be a saint also means telling God you’re sorry if you slip up and commit a sin by doing something bad on purpose. No matter what you do, God will forgive you immediately if you’re really sorry and promise to try to do better next time.

Did you know that everyone in this church today can be a saint? Jesus would love that!

What I’d like you to do at this Mass is to look at the people sitting next to you and offer a special prayer from your heart for them. Ask Jesus to make them saints one day — so we can have a whole St. Paul’s section in heaven! I can just hear Jesus now:

“Well done, good and faithful servants! Come into the joy of my Father’s Kingdom. Go Sabres!”