Become a Saint the Way a Raccoon Gets a Paw Stuck in a Log
Solemnity of All Saints
We read a book called Where the Red Fern Grows when I was in middle school, about a boy and his dogs out in the Ozark Mountains, I think it was. I honestly don’t remember much about the story.
But I do remember how the narrator describes hunting raccoons. The goal is to trap the raccoon by using its own instincts against itself. You find a log out in the woods, and carve out a narrow cylindrical hollow a few inches deep. Then you take a bottle cap and you cut out the center to create a series of sharp teeth facing inward. You take the bottle cap, jam it down into the hole in the log, and you wait for nightfall. When a raccoon comes along during the night, it will see the bottle cap reflecting moonlight from inside the log. Curious about the source of the light, the raccoon will extend its paw into the log, through the serrated bottle cap, but won’t be able to pull its paw back out because those sharp teeth facing inward will pull tight against its leg.
You have now trapped a raccoon, and it will be there waiting for you when you show up in the morning with your hunting dogs. The tough part about life as a raccoon is that you just love shiny objects, and cannot help yourself when you see one; you see it, you want it, you reach for it, and you get caught.
The point I want to make with my homily is that we need to become saints the way a raccoon gets its paw stuck in a log.
The way the world works, there is not so much difference between humans and raccoons. We also love shiny objects. You are walking down the street, see a shiny object (of whatever kind) in a store window, and you want it; your heart gets filled with desire. You are walking down the street, and a beautiful car drives past you, and you want it; your heart is filled with desire. You are walking down the street and you see a magnificent house, and you want it; your heart gets filled with desire.
We humans are just like raccoons when it comes to the working of vision and desire: we see something brilliant, we want it, and our hearts get filled with desire.
St. John says as much in our second reading today: We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. What is holiness? Living like God, being like God. How do we live like God, become like God? The answer that St. John gives is by way of seeing; he says that we will see God and that our seeing God will make us live like God, become like God.
How?
The deep truth about the world is that God is the shiniest of shiny objects. There is nothing more brilliant or more captivating than God. For centuries the Church has taught that to see God clearly causes us to want God wholeheartedly. The vision of divinity in life causes our hearts to fill with desire, and from desire comes motivation, and from motivation comes growth and sacrifice and conversion.
The key for becoming a saint is seeing God. If you see God, you will want God, and you will become like God. The practical challenge for us is to find an answer to the question: how can I see God in the world? I can say that God is the shiniest of shiny objects in the world, but that does not mean that you will see God the same way you see a shiny object in a store window or a magnificent house or a beautiful car.
Christ gives us an answer to our practical question in the Gospel today: we see God in a life of holiness, and the life of holiness looks like the beatitudes. You find real poverty in spirit, mourning, cleanliness of heart, mercy, meekness, peacemaking, suffering for the sake of righteousness, persecution for the sake of Christ, out there in the world, and you are witnessing—seeing, beholding—an image of divinity. There are people out there in the world who get life right, and we call them ‘saints’. To become a saint, you do not need to be perfect; you just need to want God more than any other shiny object in your life, to love and to live wholeheartedly.
The communion of saints that we celebrate today is a pretty awesome reality. Holiness in life is not an abstract idea or some kind of a philosophy; holiness in life is something that we see in history, a sacred gift passed from one generation to the next.
Let me explain.
We need to see God to want God. Christ gives an original vision of God to those who knew him and followed him, and from that vision of God came a desire for God, and from desire came motivation, and from motivation came growth and sacrifice and conversion. Those first followers of Christ became living witnesses to the reality of divinity in the world because the life of the beatitudes—life lived as Christ teaches us—is an image of God wherever you find it. The next generation saw in the lives of those first disciples the presence of God in the world, and that vision filled hearts with desire, and so another generation experienced the power of conversion that comes from vision, and the cycle repeats and continues through time, across the centuries. We receive a vision of God from the saints who came before us, and we give a vision of God to those who will come after us; the communion of saints, alive and dynamic, binding together the millions who have seen God, wanted God, lived like God and become like God.
The meaning of your life is to become a saint, and I guess what I really want to say tonight is that to become a saint is to live a life that becomes a witness to the presence of God in the world for the next generation. There is the meaning of your life, your years and decades defined by the beatitudes of poverty in spirit and mercy and meekness and mourning and peacemaking and cleanliness of heart and persecution for the sake of righteousness and suffering for the sake of Christ, your life reflecting and revealing the shiniest of shiny objects to a world that must see God.
Homily preached on Friday, November 1st at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary