“HOLY, HOLY, HOLY”
Saint Matthew 5. 1-12
The Feast of ALL SAINTS: [transferred] 2 November Anno Domini 2008
Fr Watson SSP
The word in English is Holy. The original Greek word which the inspired Evangelists and Epistle Writers used was "Hagios." In the Latin, which is still used today in the Liturgy, it is "Sanctus." This word, as all words, originates with the Lord Himself. When it is first used in Holy Scripture (there it is again) in Exodus, God forever defines it. It means: "special to God, separated out from everything else for God's special purpose, set aside, singularly unique, marked, and claimed for God's use." The gold covered candle-sticks and alter, along with the forks, bowls, basins and other utensils used in the Tabernacle were all made Holy (i.e. special to God with only His purposes in mind) by God's declaration that they were Holy, and by their dedication and anointing.
But it didn't just stop with inanimate tools used in the sacrificing and offering of dead animals and their atoning blood-God also made Holy (i.e. set apart for a special purpose) men. He had Aaron made the Holy High Priest and Aaron's sons ministering Holy Priests. The Tabernacle, the giant Tent itself, was denominated Holy with its "Holy Place." And, behind the final set of curtains, wherein the Holy gold-covered box (the Arc of the Covenant) was to dwell, the place was called the "Holy of Holies," that is, the most Holy Place (or Sanctum Sanctorum in the venerable Latin).
God is Holy; hence the "Holy Trinity." But Gods "specialness" is so special that it's beyond merely being "set aside" for some Lord-approved use or purpose. With God, Holiness is also a quality of the God-hood Itself, like: omnipresence, omnipotence, and irreducibility. But today, on All Saints Day, that is, All Sanctus Day or All Holy Day, or All "set aside for a particular purpose" Day, we are not talking about inherent, ontological, metaphysical, qualitative status of organic BEING, but rather the God designated status of being "set aside" by Him for a reason and use.
The Ark of the Covenant did not choose when it was still wood to allow itself to one day become a repository for the Law-the Ten Commandments. This font is not called Holy because of anything it decided or wanted. Holiness, Sanctification, is something done by the Lord because He wishes it so.
It isn't the Pope that makes a human being a Saint, it's the waters of Baptism (we do call it Holy Baptism) that do. Oh, Francis, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine and other Fathers are Saints, but then so are all of you sitting here today in the Holy Nave of the one, HOLY, Church. It isn't that one makes oneself more holy, more sanctified by praying, obedience and charitable activities, as many protestant sects seem to think, but rather Christ active in you: IS YOUR HOLINESS.
So how is Christ active in you? By His Word. Jesus is the Word made Flesh, but also His very Person and Life are also present in His written Words from the Bible. You are Saints by virtue of Jesus saying so. His decision to pick you up when you were dead and covered with the slime of suffocating sin was HIS decision. There was nothing in you that warranted it; there was no specialness about you save for His choice based on His love. But Jesus has not mystically transformed your sinful "Old Nature" flesh and spirit back to a pre-Fall Edenic state-you're not yet in Heaven with Glorified Resurrected Bodies and sinless eternal natures-not yet. While you remain in the land of the living, this broken world, awaiting your own death or the end of the present age (which ever comes first) you remain both sinner by nature and Saint by Declarative Word.
Christ is active in you when He talks to you in His Word. Christ sanctifies you both at Calvary, when He died for your sin, and in time and space when He comes to you in the Flesh and speaks this victory, this forgiveness and this restoration to "specialness" in the eyes of the Father. Christ is active in you when He sits you down at this mountain top and tells you of His Beatitudes towards you.
The Beatitudes from the Holy Evangel of Saint Matthew are not your attitudes or your works-you could never be poor in spirit, meek, merciful and pure as His Word speaks. But because Jesus did more than suffer during Passion Week for your haughtiness, vindictiveness and lust; because He did more than die for your lack of righteousness and war-making; He also lived a full life of being all that the Beatitudes are. He gave them to the 12 and the other hearers when they heard of His love and Grace for them. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Holiness comes by way of the Holy Ghost taking Christ Jesus the Word and causing belief to burst forth in your souls, your spirits, your new creations by Faith.
So, what is the celebration of today all about? What does the Feast of All Saints mean to you? The idea of a feast means that there is a meal, a distribution of food and nourishment. A feast gives not only required energy but also aesthetic beauty, joy and camaraderie. You dear brothers and sisters are the Saints for you have been set apart by Jesus' pre-ordained election before all eternity. The Word inscribed you on the palms of His Holy hands even before he had "hands." You were set apart in temporal concreteness when you were plucked out of the mass of damnation at the Baptismal Font and placed apart in a special Holy Place-the riven side of your Savior and in the very bosom of His Bride the Holy Church. You have been set apart this day to hear His Gracious Love for you from the mouth of His servant, one also placed by Him into the "office" of the Holy Ministry. He who hears me say: "I love you, I have died for you, I live for you and you live in Me, all is paid for and remitted, Peace and Joy to you" hears Jesus say these words of Life. You are set apart, you are Holy because Jesus preaches to you on this mountain side His Beatitudes which He gives to you by Faith in Him; In His Person, True God and True Man, and in His Work: perfect obedience and perfect atonement.
Continue now this saturation of the Holy Words of He Who is THE WORD, and come forward to His Holy Supper to receive His Holy Body and Holy Blood, you His Holy Family.
In the Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost