To the Band of Brothers: November 2, 2021

Good morning!

 

Yesterday we celebrated All Saints Day with a schoolwide Mass. It’s one of my favorite feast days since we celebrate the lives of so many heroes of the Catholic Church. The great Jesuit theologian Bernard Lonergan, S.J. wrote an essay summarizing the three reasons the Church practices veneration of the saints. Considering so many non-Catholics seem to bark up the saint-tree and challenge a practice that goes as far back as the Old Testament, it is a good idea to go over them.

 

First, saints serve as a sign or witness to the fulfillment of God’s promises of eternal life. In other words, saints are proof there is life after death. They are evidence that not only Jesus was raised from the dead, but that we too shall be raised and take our place in his heavenly kingdom. In the gospel of St. John, we read the words of Jesus when he comforts his apostles by telling them, “my Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (14:2-3). The saints have already moved in. 

 

Second, saints serve as intercessors for the people of God. Like Abraham who sheepishly insisted on interceding for the doomed people of Sodom (Genesis 18:22-33) or the Blessed Mother who confidently interceded on behalf of the young Jewish couple at their wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1-12), the saints intercede for those who call upon them for help. And, just as we ask anyone on earth to “pray for us,” we can ask the saints in heaven to do the same. Actually, their intercession may be better since they are so close to God. When we pray it’s a long-distance call. 

 

Third, the saints serve as proof of the potential of the gospel. Just as I look forward to one day making a hole-in-one because others have done it before me, Christians can strive to live out the gospel because others have successfully done it before them. The saints are proof that the expectations of Jesus Christ, through trial and error, through perseverance and faith, through blood, sweat, and tears can be met.

 

Lonergan’s theological triad is clear and concise. The great litany of canonized saints whose feast days we celebrate throughout the liturgical year and who have been charged with patronages as random as ingrown toenails (St. Martin de Porres) and fishmongers (St. Magnus of Avignon) have met the standards. They have officially made their way into the Church’s calendarium sanctis.

 

But, what about those men and women who also seem to hold up satisfactorily to the Church’s standards and have not yet been “okayed” for public veneration (at least not yet)? I am sure most of us have been touched by saintly men and women who have reflected the image of Christ and have brought us significantly closer to living the truth of the gospels. Men and women who we are convinced have been given access to one of those heavenly rooms even though the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of the Saints hasn’t realized they are checked in.

 

Take for example, Bishop Enrique San Pedro, S.J. He was my tenth-grade theology teacher. How a man who spoke seven different languages, was a Scriptural scholar, and a missionary in the Philippines, Fiji Islands, and Vietnam, got stuck with the annoying task of teaching Christian morality to 16-year-old boys is beyond me. He actually wasn’t very good at it. But, others in the Church obviously knew something about San Pedro that ignorant sophomores did not: he was a very holy man.

 

In fact, so holy was he that Pope John Paul II ordained him a bishop and sent him to Galveston-Houston where he would minister to the large population of Hispanic and Vietnamese Catholics. He died of cancer not long after that. Years later, a young Belen student was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor. We prayed to the holy bishop for a sign from heaven. We got it. The tumor disappeared and doctors had no medical explanation. Needless to say, my tenth-grade theology teacher is currently on the road to canonization and, hopefully soon, heaven will have two San Pedros.

 

Here’s another one: Fr. Jorge Sardiña, S.J. For many years, Fr. Sardiña worked as a spiritual counselor for students in the middle school at Belen. A man of profound prayer and as loving as they come, he inspired thousands with his kindness. Of all the things I can say about him, I remember one in particular.

 

On Sunday, September 3, 2000, I heard my first confession. I was in the sacristy at St. Timothy Catholic Church getting ready to preside over my first mass when Fr. Sardiña pulled me to the side and asked me to hear his confession. Was he crazy? I was a nervous wreck because I was minutes away from processing into a crowd of over a thousand people who had packed the pews of my childhood parish to be a part of the celebration. I asked him to reconsider. He lovingly said no. I can tell you that I don’t remember anything he said. Not because of that special grace of forgiving and forgetting the Lord gives to His ministers of reconciliation, but because Fr. Sardiña’s sins were so inoffensive I was somewhat embarrassed to be hearing them. Fr. Sardiña was such a holy and good man, that the slightest of things was for him truly an offense. Like a whitewashed wall that picks up the slightest speck of dust, that man’s heart and soul were as pure as the driven snow.

 

Bishop San Pedro and Fr. Sardiña have not been canonized, but their presence in heaven, their witness to the gospel values while here on earth, and their powerful intercession lead me only to believe, at least personally, that I can include them piously in the great company of the saints. Even though yesterday’s feast day calls us to celebrate the greatness of those holy men and women who lived and loved with the kind of fervor only surpassed by that of Jesus Christ, we can spend the whole year thanking God for the gift of all the saints, those we read about and those we have known personally.

 

Auspice Maria,