All the World's a Stage--All Saint's Day Homily

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.

 

Shakespeare’s words capture the great mystery of this day.  This day where the stage has been set.  The stage of salvation history with its actors, the saints playing parts, moving in the dance of Trinitarian life and love.   Our ticket to the show: our baptism, given to us free, free and yet so costly. Gathered in with this ticket we can look on and see:

 

We see saints sailing ships across seas, saints falling off horses, saints riding around in Pope Mobiles

We see doubting saints, pious saints, saints feeling wounds and saints feeling wounded

We see saints severed in pieces, saints held high on crosses, saints buried deep below

We see saints shunning wealth, shunning property, shunning money and even shunning family

We see saints being called and saints calling others, saints speaking eloquently and saints listening intently

We see saintly bones and saintly garbs, saintly heads and saintly hearts. We see saintly paintings of saints in the celestial heavens

We see saints who are writers, poets and musicians

We see saints who are healers, and prophets with visions

We see the saints in their brokenness and their glory, their faith and their story. 

 

Oh yes, all the worlds a stage and we look on to this wooden o of salvation history and we see many things. 

 

But the saints also see us:

 

They see us come down these mountains, come out of these hollers, to our little store front church

They see us pick each other up for mass and pick each other up when we have fallen.

They see us question our faith and doubt our faith and sometimes even reject our faith.

They see us meeting behind wooden partitions so we can learn more about our faith.

They see us struggling with language and food and differences and decoration

They see us offering communion to those who are sick, alone and forgotten

They see us fumble with our words when asked about Mary or the very ones who watch us

They see us crying at night, laughing during the day.  Trying to pray.

They see us grieving the loss of a loved one, rejoicing in new life, and asking God for just one more day

 

They see it all as we are also on the stage.  They have seen it before and gone through it themselves.  And so they applaud us with prayers when we need them the most.  They help us with our lines because they know the script better than we.  They’ve walked the stage before and so pray that our movements are wise.

 

Today, as always, we take a bow before them but they also bow to us.  As we have watched them through the annals of time so their eyes gaze watchfully. 

 

As we all take our bow we look up to see, the great director—the playwright—the one who orchestrated this majestic and eternal cast of saints.  The one who wrote the play that answers all the desires of our heart, even those of which we cannot dare dream.  As the scene ends and the curtain falls on the night, we long to be gathered together in his eternal light.