📅 01 November 2026  |  👤  Dn. Joshua D'souza SJ

Have you ever noticed something strange about the statues of saints in our churches?

They are always so beautiful. Their faces are peaceful, their eyes lifted towards heaven, their hands folded in prayer. Not a wrinkle of worry, not a trace of fear. But I sometimes wonder: If these statues could speak, what stories would they tell?

Perhaps St. Peter would tell us about the night he denied his best friend. St. Augustine would speak about the years he wasted searching for happiness in all the wrong places. St. Thérèse of Lisieux might tell us how, after losing her mother, she became so emotionally sensitive that even a single look could reduce her to tears. And St. Ignatius of Loyola might smile and say, “If only you knew the man I was before God found me!”

You see, we have polished the statues of the saints so beautifully that sometimes we have polished away their humanity. And that is unfortunate. Because their humanity is precisely what gives us hope.

Today, the Church celebrates not a gathering of perfect people, but a communion of people whom God's grace has made holy. In our first reading, St. John sees an enormous multitude standing before God's throne, dressed in white robes. But listen carefully to what the elder says: “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress.” They have come through suffering, struggle and tears. And their robes are white, not because they never became stained, but because they have been washed in the blood of the Lamb.

What a beautiful paradox! Blood ordinarily stains. But the blood of Christ makes clean.

Holiness, then, is not the absence of wounds. It is allowing our wounds to be touched and transformed by the love of Christ. And this brings us to the Beatitudes. Notice whom Jesus calls blessed. Not those who have everything figured out, but the poor in spirit. Not those who never cry, but those who mourn. Not those who possess all the power, but the meek. Jesus does not romanticize suffering. Rather, he promises that suffering and weakness do not have the final word. The Beatitudes are not merely commandments to follow. They are also a portrait of Jesus himself, who became poor, who wept, who showed mercy, and who suffered for righteousness.

The saints became holy by allowing their lives to resemble his. And perhaps this is where today's feast becomes deeply personal. Some of us are struggling with anger. Some with broken relationships. Some with addictions, disappointments, or prayers that seem unanswered. We look at the saints and think, “I could never become like them.” But St. John reminds us in the second reading: “We are God's children now.” Not someday, when we become better. Not when we have overcome every weakness. Now!

Our holiness begins not with what we achieve for God, but with what God has already given us: his love. Dear friends, heaven is not a museum of flawless statues. It is a home filled with redeemed sinners. So perhaps today, instead of asking, “Can I ever become a saint?” we should ask:

“What part of my broken life have I still not allowed God to touch?”

Because the saints remind us of something wonderfully comforting: God does not wait for us to become perfect before loving us. He loves us into becoming holy.

Amen.