We gather this day to celebrate the feast of all saints, remembering no the Saints with a big "S" but those who are the communion of saints with a small "s", the myriad of Christians who throughout history have lived out their lives, loving and serving the Lord. Today is a reminder that God is as interested in the ordinary lives as in the spectacular lives and ask nothing more than we live out our lives faithfully serving him.

This festival is steeped in Celtic thinking. comes to us from Ireland, the most wild and far flung places of what was once called Christendom. Deeply informed by the Celtic ground which nurtured them, the Irish Christians wove into the Church year the celebration of All Saints as the Christian expression of the Celtic autumn festival of Samhain (pronounced soween if you are from the West and shamawn if your are from the East of Ireland)

Samhain was celebrated after the harvest and at the dying of the year. At this time, it was thought that the veil between earthly and spiritual reality was the thinnest and conversation between the two spheres was most possible. What for the pre-Christian Celts was a time of deep learning became a celebration of the presence of God in the community through the lives of their Saints. Saints were themselves a doorway through which the divine light could shine and All Saints was a Day set apart to see God's light shining through the whole communion, to celebrate the unity of divine love and power that connects this life and the next. It is also a wonderful day to celebrate how all the saints, small "s" can learn from the Saints, big "S."

But the Saints, capital "S", didn't get that way by leading everyday lives. They got that "S" because they chose, and sometimes were chosen, to live lives pursuing the more than human life of living encounters with the Divine Mystery. Sometimes they ran panting after God and sometimes they were dragged kicking and screaming into the Kingdom of God. They are all living examples of what a Saint can look like. Sometimes we are lucky and even have the record of their struggle to live into that capital "S."

But for most of us "that was then, this is now." People aren't like that any more and besides that we are not ignorant folk who believe in all that miraculous brou-ha-ha. There's not a little bit of pride for many of us as we proclaim that as Christians we are "just folks." Nothing special here. But if this is so, then what's the point. The Church is reduced to just something else to do. I don't think Augustine or Margaret or any of the other Saints were just looking for something to do. Nor were they looking to become Saints, but they did.

Today is a feast to remind us of the whole company of saints, not just those who are Saints with a capital "S", but the saints who are all who call themselves Christian. The saints are the holy people, the sanctified ones, not pure to start with, but cleansed and made holy by the blood of the lamb.

It is to that company that we belong, and so today we celebrate our belonging to the great cloud of witnesses.

Let us pause then for a moment and contemplate what it means to be a saint?

From our readings today, there seems to be two criteria — quality of life and quality of death. The saints distinguish themselves from others, by the way the live or by the way the die. All though these are hard times for the church, I do not feel that the probability of martyrdom is high for us here in this place. So I think it is worthwhile that we concentrate on the qualities of life that belong to a saint.

The gospel reading for today is sometimes called the beatitudes and it comes from Jesus teaching recorded in Matthew’s Gospel in the passage known as the sermon on the mount. In my last year in college, I got to write an essay on these 107 Greek words, and managed to put together close of 15,000, so what ever I say today, is only to whet your appetite for this passage.

The Beatitudes are a collection of sayings of Jesus where he describes the qualities of those who are blessed and the blessings that they will experience. Some people feel that this is a simple passage used by the early church to answer the question — what does it mean to be a Christian, and certainly it attempts to delineate the qualities fo the Christian life.

So what are these qualities:"Blessed are

• the poor in spirit, - they know their need for God.
• those who mourn, - the will be comforted
• the meek, - they do not push themselves forward (but neither are they pushed around
• those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who want this world to be more the place that would honour God
• the merciful, who will care rather than judge
• the pure in heart, whose lives have evil removed.
• the peacemakers, who bring peace to others
• those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, who are not afraid of putting their lives on the line for the sake of the things of God.

Now, I don’t know about you, but these are quite daunting expectations. Perhaps I feel; that I can achieve some of them, but all of them… Well… I think that you will agree that it seems like Mission Impossible, but as Jesus said, when describing the camel and the eye of the needle: ’What is impossible for man, is possible for God’

It is not that these are things that we will achieve for ourselves, or in ourselves, but if we are prepared to allow God to get involved, then these are the qualities that he will give to us. Sometimes they will manifest in us quickly, but for most of us, it takes a lifetime of walking with God for them to become apparent..

The blessings that are promised - the kingdom of heaven, comfort, inheriting the earth, satisfaction, mercy, seeing God and being called his children, are the promises to all the saints, and they will be ours as we allow God to change us into the people he would have us be. Today, as we celebrate the company of heaven, let us thank God for how he has worked in our lives until this day, and ask him to keep working with us that we might be his Holy people here in Cressy.

The essential mark upon the saints, big or little "S" is the mark of love. Love like the love of Christ devoted to the Will of the Father and poured out in love for the neighbour; that is what makes a Christian a Saint. God is beautiful in his saints and we are hopeful because of them. As one unknown writer had a way of putting it: ‘O Lord I want to be in that number — when the saints go marching in.

Let us open ourselves up to God and allow God to get to work to bring us to saintly perfection..

AMEN.