We went to the Spanish Mass this morning. Although I am by no means fluent en Espanol, I love bilingual liturgies - in part because I spent several happy childhood years in a parish where the choir mostly sang Spanish hymns. Anyways, as I was listening to the Eucharistic Prayer in Spanish - this morning, for whatever reason, the words "y todos los santos" - "and all the saints" stuck in my head - and they stayed stuck there for the rest of the day. I don't know why. I love that phrase in Spanish, I think it sounds much more beautiful than it does in English, but today, it seemed to be about more than the beauty of the words.
Yesterday was the feast of St. John Vianney, and I had intended to blog about his feast day, but because the past few days have been so busy, I missed the opportunity. I was thinking about that tonight, and thinking about how St. John Vianney is another one of my "favorite" saints. And I thought to myself, well, I think all of the saints are my favorite saints... you know what I mean? All of the saints - todos los santos - are wonderful - and they're all very different, too - so diverse in their paths to holiness, so diverse in their backgrounds and experiences. I've never "met" a saint I didn't like. And still, they all hold different meanings for me - they have different ways of being important in my life.
And it made me think: the saints are another one of God's wonderful ways of reminding us that he is working in our world, and working in human lives, in powerful and amazing ways - all the time. And if he did such great things in the lives of all the saints - who were all so different, and struggled with so many different challenges, just like we do - well, then he can do great things in our lives, too.
Todos los santos... all the saints. May they pray for us. And may we recognize, through their many examples, that each of us has a different path to holiness.
+Peace and good.
No comments:
Post a Comment