The month of November and especially November 1, All Saints Day and November 2, All Souls Day invite us to remember all those who have gone before us. Some of them we honor as Saints, others are still on their way to sainthood, even after death, assisted by our prayers. For most of us whose path to sainthood might be a bit circuitous, it is a consolation that many saints did not start as such. Just think of St. Paul who persecuted Christians before his conversion. Saint Augustine who was not a picture of perfection either before his mother’s prayers were heard and he changed his ways. So, there is hope for all of us. But how do we get there?
Two Sundays ago, on the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time we heard in the Gospel how James and John audaciously said to Jesus “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” When asked by Jesus what they wished for they answered: “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” James and John self-righteously considered themselves worthy of this great reward and recognition. Jesus in response neither agreed nor disagreed. He simply said: “whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.”
This Gospel passage reminded me of Revelation, a short story by the renowned Catholic author Flannery O’Connor. In it, O’Connor challenges the better-than-thou attitude of Mrs. Turpin, the lead character in the story. A self-proclaimed good Christian woman, she looks down on and pitties all those people who seemingly do not live up to her religious standards and she does that in a disturbingly flagrant way. And like James and John she does not doubt her good chances to make it into heaven,
One evening, while Mrs. Turpin is tending her hogs, she has a vision of a bridge leading to heaven, with a procession of saints ascending on it. To her great consternation the people in the front are all those she looks down upon: “the dirty and poor, the least and the lowest.” The “respectable” people like herself are also on the bridge but they are in the rear, visibly shocked to not be in front.
Like Mrs. Turpin It is all too easy to look down on or even disparage other people. The temptation to become self-congratulatory because of all the things we do right is very real. We forget that all of us are sinners despite all the good we do. Still, we can take great consolation in the fact that God loves us beyond comprehension no matter what. And by God’s grace our self-righteous selves can be shattered and healed so we may join “the dirty and poor, the least and the lowest” on our path to sainthood and on the bridge to heaven for “whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.”