The feast of All Saints teaches us that holiness comes in all sizes and shapes. The saints are rich and poor, young and old, warriors and peacemakers, hermits and organizers of charities, parents and celibates, scholars and those who couldn’t read, every era has its saints as does ours. The struggles may change; the heroes are still among us.
On a hillside that rises out of the north-west end of the Sea of Galilee there is a hill with a cone shaped indenture with grass and weathered tops of stones. At the bottom is a shoreline where boats can beach and anchor. The prevailing wind is from the southwest and rises up the hill. A person standing on the shoreline can be heard by thousands of people reclining on the hillside, without the aid of megaphones or speaker. In such a place Jesus provided some details about how we are to love God, and love our neighbor as ourselves, to the thousands of people seeking help to live under the thumb of the Roman occupiers and the rigid demands of the Jewish leaders. Jesus spoke to them in Aramaic, and according to Rev. Abuna Elias Chacour, a Melkite Catholic priest from Biram in Galilee, Jesus was telling them to Get up, go ahead, do something, move, you who want justice, righteousness, peace, and all the other things you seek. And Jesus is telling us who want those things to, “Get up, go ahead, do something, move.”
