All Saints

Homily 1 - 2020

Has the pandemic had you thinking of deeper things that you had not thought much about previously?

Perhaps it would be better not to think too much about some things, and simply leave our future in the hands of God. Personally, I think, I hope, that I trust God totally on that score.

Today’s First Reading was taken from the Apocalypse [as the Lectionary called it]. In graphic detail it outlined a vision, a dream, seen by someone called John. He spoke of heaven where he saw “a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language”. They were enthusiastic, ecstatic, carried away by the wonder of God and of Jesus who was there with God.

The Second Reading brought another dimension to heaven. Its focus was relationship with God — the relationship of child to parent. What could that mean? What could that be like?

Interestingly, the Reading said that “we are already the children of God” — but that seems to be a reality that few of us, perhaps none of us, recognises or feels now. We take it on faith, if we think much of it at all.

With death, apparently, our capacity to see will change. We shall see what now we cannot see. As a result, “We shall see God as God really is”, possibly because we shall finally see ourselves as we really are, even now — daughters and sons of God — a relationship that will become so transforming, so deep, so personal that we in fact become “like God” [as the Reading went on to say]. What on earth could that mean, “We shall become like God?” What might that be like?

Perhaps we need to be patient [or would it be better if we were more impatient?], waiting for the moment of death, when that new capacity to see the real will itself become real.