ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
Evensong, Last after Trinity, 29 October 2006.
Fr Ivan Aquilina
Words from our anthem:
“Come, quickly come, and let thy glory shine,
Gilding our darksome heaven with rays divine”
This prayer to Jesus reminds us that we need to be the agents through
which the Light of Christ can enlighten our world. It reminds us that
we are called to holiness. No time as good as this to reflect upon holiness
as this in which we embark on the All Saints Festival, the feast of title
of our community. We are called to holiness; there is no checklist, or
standard form; there is no one way to be holy. There are as many paths
to holiness as there are saints and that is countless. There are many
paths but there is only one way and that is Jesus Christ our Lord and
God: he who is, as we heard in the Anthem, the “pure beam of the
Most High, the eternal Light”.
If we want to grasp the notion of holiness there is only one thing that
we are able to do and that is to look intently and lovingly on the face
of Jesus and read in silence about holiness there. Doing that we will
find out that holiness is living the life of the gospel in the day to
day things, it is not spectacular or sensational. If holiness is living
the gospel than we can sum up holiness in three small words, words which
are able to change the world, words that are powerful no end. Theses three
words are called the Evangelical Counsels they are: Poverty, Chastity
and Obedience. These words are at the heart of our spiritual life, we
ignore them at our own peril. They are in essence counter cultural and
prophetic, they are the gateway and the signposts to that narrow way that
Jesus points us to.
We tend to identify these three words with those whom we call the religious:
monks, friars, nuns and members of religious congregations of consecrated
life, and in part this is true. One becomes a monk or a nun only after
taking the solemn vows and these vows are those of Poverty, Chastity and
Obedience. Sadly, some think that consecrated people are living these
three words on our behalf. This can not be further from the truth. Those
in religious life make these vows to become permanent sacramentals, reminding
the rest of us about the vital need of living them. Vital because the
three words of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience put together and lived
out spell to us in a sublime way the word holiness.
Let us look at them individually.
Poverty: Let us start with a negative. Poverty in this context is not
destitution. It is freedom. It is the freedom of detachment from ones
own possessions. It is the grace of allowing nothing to take God’s
rightful place. It is using ones own talents and possessions for the greater
glory of God and the service of our neighbour. It is really possessing
ones possessions rather than being possessed by them. Poverty is the grace
of detaching ones heart from everything, even from things of sentimental
value. Catherine of Siena had a valuable possession, a small crucifix
given to her by her mother. One day, a few months after her mother’s
death, she was going to church for vespers. On the way she meets a poor
man asking for help. The only thing of value she has is the crucifix,
she hands it over. Upon entering the church she notices something strange
on the statue of the virgin and child. The child Jesus holds in his hands
the crucifix she has just given away. This is the kind of poverty that
leads to holiness.
Chastity: Through this way of life we hold our passions in control. We
become free as we do not let our passions dictate our behaviour. Falling
victim to our passions is becoming slaves to lust in which we also use
other people for our own sinful pleasures. Using other people is the opposite
of loving and serving them as persons created in the image of God. Being
chaste, in single or married life, means using the gift of sex as God
wills it to be used. Being chaste is being caught up in the life of the
angels; it is keeping a pure mind according to God’s will full of
love and free from the slavery of unlawful passion.
Obedience: How unpopular is this word in this day and age when we are
encouraged to do whatever we think is right as we are masters of our own
life. Obedience, in the evangelical way of life, means uniting our will
with the will of God in everything; it means giving to God the central
place that is rightfully his. We can not pick and mix with God; we accept
His will in its totality. It is very difficult for us assailed by pride
to do this; we tend to think that we know best. The example here for us
is the Blessed Virgin Mary, the obedient servant of God. In doing God’s
will in its entirety we are not only totally free but we are fulfilled
as our heart will never be fulfilled but in God alone. Obedience also
means accepting the Faith Catholic, as believed by the Universal Church
everywhere and throughout the ages, in its totality.
If we feel the task too great than let us remember Paul’s words
in tonight’s second reading: “You then, my child, be strong
in the grace that is in Christ Jesus…”
Here it is, in three words, encapsulated the life of holiness, as we celebrate
with joy our festival let us make them our constant meditation and live
them. In living the evangelical counsels of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience
we than can make our own the prayer which ended our anthem tonight:
“Let thy bright beams
disperse the gloom of sin,
Our nature all shall feel eternal day,
In fellowship with thee, transforming day
To souls erewhile unclean, now pure within. Amen.”