Becoming Saints: Grace in Our Struggles and Strengths
Readings and Virtual Homily for November 2, 2025, Feast of All Souls; Four Days Out of Five at O'Dowd; November Schedule
Readings for Mass this Sunday:
Wisdom 3:1-9
Psalm 23:1-6
Romans 5:5-11
OR
Romans 6:3-9
John 6:37-40
Dear Friends and Family,
This weekend is, of course, the weekend that starts the month of the souls, the month of the novissimi, which we associate with the Last Days and the Last Things, but which in fact actually translates as the New Things (novo -- new in Latin). There need not be any sense of contradiction, Last Things, New Things. The Four Last Things Ever To Be Remembered, after all (Death, Judgment, Hell and Heaven) directly correlate to the beginning of the New Things, the new heavens, the new earth, the new and everlasting life already enjoyed by the saints and toward which we direct our own earthly efforts.
As a child my favorite day of this Triduum was All Hallow's Eve, that is, of course, Halloween. I liked All Saints Day a whole lot, too, because back when I was a kid, all Catholic schools took the day off. A holiday with a trick or treat bag full of candy! Didn't get much better than that.
As I matured (like that word better than as I aged), I came into a greater appreciation of All Saints Day -- I mean to the point where it became one of my favorite feast days of the year. This would be back around the time -- my late twenties and early thirties -- that I had returned to the practice of the faith and had a hungry and deep appreciation for the saints, for their adventures, their struggles, their joys and setbacks, their inspirational lives.
The saints were, they are, inspirational simply in the variety of approaches they exhibit, in terms of coming into one's fullness as a disciple. From Francis and Clare and their embrace of evangelical poverty to Helena, Roman Empress, who employed her near-limitless wealth in such a way as to become known as "mother of the indigent and poor," in both Rome and Constantinople. I remember a priest-professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley once remarking to us (his students) that though "there are only so many ways to be bad, there appears to be an endless variety of ways to be good."
I liked that. It speaks not just to the great diversity of gifts, talents and approaches to discipleship that we find among the saints, but to our lives -- to the empowerment by grace of our unique skills and abilities, indeed, of our passions. Which last gets to another thing about the saints and their example -- we may admire them for the huge variety of gifts they collectively developed and placed at the service of humanity. But we may also admire the way they allowed grace to light up their passions, giving us insights into the way their sainthood played out through their individual characters and personalities.
They all had faults to overcome. None of them were born saints. The way they worked with grace -- through struggle and setback every bit as much as through success -- had a lot to do with shaping their unique path of discipleship, their unique sainthood. It can give us hope and encouragement to realize that where we are weakest, God is strongest. It is in the cracks that the Light can shine through, opening up latent interior capacities, capacities which, assisted by grace, result in the triumph of virtue, developing strengths within us which we might not have guessed ourselves to possess. (For indeed, and not meaning to belabor the point, only to clarify it: we possess these strengths only as potentialities; their development and empowerment relies on our cooperation with grace.)
The dynamics of sainthood fascinate me, and have, since, as I say, I first came back to the Church at 28.
There is then, finally, All Souls Day, the feast we actually are celebrating this Sunday. My deepening appreciation of the significance of this feast only got going at seminary, where the Hispanic seminarians made a bright and showy celebration of the day, following the customs of their native (or ancestral) lands. If you'd asked me about All Souls Day in my thirties, I probably would have shrugged. In my forties (at seminary) I came to a real appreciation of the deep, the powerful and abiding faith that lies behind the gaily painted skulls, the flower-bedecked altars with offerings of favorite foods and beverages for the departed souls, the outright parties in the cemeteries.
I came to see this manner of celebration as a bright and joyful manifestation of the reality of the Catholic doctrine of the communion of saints. Hispanic Catholics took that reality to heart; El Dia de Los Muertos is a day of joy -- why shouldn't it be? Our beloved dead are, in fact, more alive than we are, in eternity. And they are with us in ways we are by no means able to fully appreciate or experience. But on the Day of the Dead, the feast of All Souls, we "open the veil" between our world and theirs, and celebrate with them; our love for them, their love for us, God's love for all.
Cool. Or, as they say in Caracas, chevere.
So after all that, just a thumbnail summary of today's readings. All of them are directed to a confident hope of the joys of the afterlife. They are, not surprisingly, readings which are often employed at funeral Masses. The first, from the Book of Wisdom, describes the life of the saints in vibrant terms -- shooting like sparks amid the stubble and ruling over nations (vss. 7-8). Psalm 23 needs little explication; it is one of the most comforting and beloved of all the psalms, declaring unshakable trust in the Good Shepherd. Both readings from Romans offer deep assurances of our eternal safety in the love of Christ; in his desire and power to save us. The Gospel passage is the one where Jesus assures us that no one who has come to him will be lost (vs. 40). In sum, today's readings urge a confident hope in our own eventual sainthood.
I was on campus four times this week -- that is, I was involved with campus events four times. The first (of three) sophomore retreats transpired at San Damiano in Danville Monday and Tuesday of this week. About 40 members of the Class of 2028 on hand. We had seven student leaders (juniors and seniors) and ten adults. The theme of the sophomore retreat is very apt for the week which includes All Saints Day: Superheroes; identifying one's own super powers and finding ways to place them at the service of humanity. In other words, the retreat is about how to become a saint, but translated into language and images the kids can relate to.
Thursday morning I was on campus to celebrate our All Saints Mass. Friday was a professional development day; the kids had it off, so we did our huge and very joyful All Saints Mass on Thursday.
Then, Friday evening, I was back on campus to watch the fall musical, Little Shop of Horrors. Bizarre, almost Gothic, musical from I think the late seventies. I don't really know what I thought of the play (I told a colleague, an English teacher, as we were exiting that I could use a literary analysis and maybe some overall instruction on the musical's central metaphor). I may not have known what I thought of the play but I know what I thought of the kids' performances. Stellar. As always. The talent on display on the O'Dowd stage, three productions each year, is sometimes nothing short of breath-taking.
And I am actually back on campus Sunday, for Open House, as noted above. This was a week for the high school, I guess; a week where the sabbatical was to some real extent suspended. All good. I have enjoyed it.
This is waaaaaay long enough! I'll close here.
Take good care; God bless; Happy All Saints/All Souls Days!
Love,
Fr. Brawn
November Schedule:
PLEASE NOTE CHANGE IN THE PLEASANTON MASS THIS MONTH: It is not November 2, as originally scheduled. It is now November 30. The change was necessitated by my presence being requested at Open House at the high school, November 2.
If the weekend Mass schedule looks a little sparse that is because it is. I am giving a retreat at St. Clare in Soquel one weekend this month and I was supposed to be traveling over another -- the travel plans got canceled, but the schedule was already set.
Saturday, Nov. 1
5 PM (English)
Sunday, Nov. 2
630 PM (English)
Sunday, November 16
630 PM (English)
Saturday, November 29
5 PM (English)
Sunday November 30
11 AM (English) THE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY OF PLEASANTON/Seton Campus
630 PM (English)
Daily Masses (all 8 AM and in English)
Sat. Nov. 1
Mon. Nov. 3
Mon. Nov. 10
Mon. Nov. 17
Fri. Nov. 21
Mon. Nov. 24
Fri. Nov. 28