The Day Of All Saints

I really like the Catholic idea of All Saints Day. No, not those guys and gals with halos over their heads, the official saints and, also no, we don’t worship them or silly things like that. They’re only people who we are encouraged to emulate. Much like the pictures of Washington and Lincoln we hang up in schools.

The saints I like are the people who have made it to eternal life, also known as heaven. I mean, people who have a checkered past, people who maybe got it all together, or those who never did get it right. Those are the saints; they tried; that's all it takes. Nobody’s perfect and only nuns in cloistered closed-off convents walk in unscathed.

I prefer to think that I’ll arrive at the Pearly Gates on a stretcher with the Angelic Emergency Room staff shouting out: “Here’s another one. Pretty beat up from stuff that happened in his life, but he’s going to make it. Give me a pint of grace, three pints of forgiveness and a visit from the Divine Healer.”

Yeah, that’s what I’m looking for. We all have checkered pasts, all of us. Hey – you, too. Yeah, you over there, look at me. You’ve got some stuff. We all do.

I’m willing to bet the Official Saints, if we asked them about their titles and their church canonization, would say, “Oh, pleeeeze, I didn’t ask for it and, if you ask my opinion, it’s pretty embarrassing. I just did what I felt was necessary in my life, hoped nobody would catch my weak moments, and I would be treated kindly at the end. That’s all.”