It has been, undoubtedly, the strangest year of our lives. Thanks to a tiny, unseen virus that can be destroyed with some soap and water, our lives and lifestyles have changed. Our religious practices have changed, too. We used to go to church every Sunday. A good number of us don’t anymore. We used to give the sign of peace to those standing close to us during Mass. Now we just nod, and physical proximity is not possible any more. Our faith has been tested.

Many times throughout this year Matthew has been trying to help us understand what it means to be part of the Kingdom of God. Through the parable of the two sons he showed us that it’s not a matter of words, of just saying yes to the Father, but of actually doing what the Father would like us to do. Jesus repeatedly speaks about love and forgiveness (‘seventy seven times’, he tells Peter). It’s about helping the brother who has erred to rise again, rather than judging him. It’s about giving to God what really belongs to Him, of putting on the right garment by living as beings created on His own image, walking on His footsteps the path which eventually led to the cross. Ultimately, it’s about living the greatest commandment which is Love, as he unhesitantly answered the law-scholar.

This Sunday we conclude this journey with Matthew. This is the last Sunday of the liturgical year of the Church. Next Sunday we begin a new year with the first Sunday of Advent. As always, this last Sunday celebrates the solemnity of Christ as King of the universe. It might sound a bit archaic, out of place in today’s world. But considering all that we’ve been reflecting upon, a good reflection on the make-up of this Kingdom is very fitting. To help us do this the Church presents to us the well-known passage of the Last Judgement. The King, who is judging the people of “all nations”, separates the good from the bad, or the sheep from the goats as the story tells us. Then he gives us the criteria on which He is basing His judgement. It’s not about the hours spent in prayer or the number of days I actually went to church. Let’s be clear: prayer and worshipping with my fellow-Christians is important or, rather, indispensable. Because it is there where I get the strength needed to live out my faith in my daily life. But stopping there is not enough. Christianity is never selfish. It’s not about me. My faith has to be lived out in my daily life – no need for extraordinary stuff. Jesus identifies himself with the people I meet in my everyday life. I was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick. It’s all about the needy. Whether these needy people find themselves in this state due to their own mistakes, or whether they are lovable or unloving people does not matter. What matters for me as a Christian is that if they need my help I am expected to reach out to them.

​This is what belonging to God’s Kingdom is all about. Living the greatest commandment in my daily life. Putting in practice the command which Jesus gave us at the Last Supper after washing the feet of his disciples (Judas included): “I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

Happy Feast-Day to You!

That’s right, because today we are celebrating All Saints’ Day. It is one of those solemnities that are so important that, when it happens to fall on a Sunday like today, the Church skips the liturgy which would have been scheduled for that particular Sunday to celebrate this feast. We love celebrating feasts for saints. Some of us come from places where the feast-day of the saint is one of the main celebrations in the calendar of our town or village. Yet today the Church reminds us that the saints are not only those whose days we celebrate with such gusto. They are not only those whose names are on the liturgical calendar of the Church (unlike the ones above, some of them are simply unknown to most of us). Only God knows how many men and women have journeyed the same journey of faith that we are doing and, in spite of the difficulties and failures which exist in everyone’s life, they managed to make it. These, too, are saints.

When I was still a little boy, I used to love listening to stories of the lives of some saints which spoke of miracles, wonders, and much of the extraordinary. As I grew older, I came to know stories of saints that were much more akin to my own story. Stories where the writer made sure to show that the saint is a normal person like you and me, people who had their struggles in their lives, men and women who sometimes erred, but did not stay there. They are people who did not perform extraordinary miracles, neither in their lives nor after their death. They are, therefore, not listed in the list of people who are formally recognized as saints by the Church. And yet, we believe that they are enjoying God’s full presence like the other more popular saints.

As I write this, I am accompanying my mother on the final leg of her life journey. As I gather with my family around her, we reminisce about many memories that shaped us into who we are today. Thankfully, many are beautiful memories. Others were of hard times or difficult experiences. Looking back, we are grateful for all of it, and we have no doubt that our mother did her best to live out her vocation as a Christian mother and wife. Prayer was always important in her life, because she knew that God had to be her constant companion on her journey. And we have no doubt that when the time comes, she will be joining her own parents, her siblings and her other son in God’s wonderful presence. The life of the saint does not have to be extraordinary!

In today’s first reading St John speaks of the vision where, after seeing 144 thousand in God’s presence, he sees “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages”. The number is infinite, and no tribe, no race is excluded. These are all people who had a similar life like we have. They had problems in their marriages, they struggled to do what they believed was right, they sometimes made mistakes, they had their moments of doubt in their faith.

Today’s feast reminds us that, if these people who were normal people like you and I made it, so can we. Celebrating their feast-day should inspire us to learn from and imitate their lives. And because we believe that they are alive (albeit in a different way) we can ask them to help us in our own journey. That is what praying to the saints is all about.

​During this coming week think with a thankful heart of some of those people who can be an inspiration for you in your life. Speak to them, ask them to help you. And believe that, with God’s help, you too can make it. 

It has often been said that “God’s ways are not our ways”. I think this saying has never been truer than in the story we are celebrating this weekend.

When you think about it, St Paul never had any intention to go to Malta. All he wanted to do was go to be tried in Rome, thus using his privilege as a Roman citizen. Had he not filed his appeal to go to Caesar, he would have been a free man. As King Agrippa himself said during Paul’s trial, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar”, because he “is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment.” However, since Paul had lodged that appeal, his wish had to be respected.

Undoubtedly Paul was using that excuse to visit the Christian community in Rome, to whom he had already written a letter although he had never visited them yet.  That was Paul’s plan – a long-time ambition of his. God had other things in mind.

As soon as they set sail, they started encountering difficulties. The trip was taking longer than expected due to the bad weather. When they took shelter in Crete, Paul insisted they should not keep going. The centurion, and the owner and captain of the ship decided otherwise. This decision was almost fatal. The storm kept growing. For days on end the expert mariners could not control the ship. Those on board started losing hope. Luke tells us that at one point “we finally gave up all hope of being saved”.

In desperation, some tried to escape. Paul stopped this, assuring everybody that all were going to be saved. By now, thanks to a vision he had, he had become in tune with God’s plan in this story. Paul would, eventually, face Caesar, but first, they had to “run aground on some island.” This was, therefore, the real purpose of this whole adventure.

Paul’s coming to Malta was no human endeavor. It was purely God’s providence in action. There is no doubt that the people of Malta had always been a religious people. The thousands-of-years old temples scattered throughout our islands are ample testimony to this. This religiosity of our ancestors shines forth in today’s story. When Paul was bitten by a snake, the people immediately saw this as a divine punishment for some huge wrong-doing. “This man must be a murderer,” they said. One may manage to escape a storm, but there is no way one can run away from divine justice! Then, upon seeing that no ill befell him, they concluded he must be a god!

By now Paul must have understood how God was constructing this story. And Paul the evangelizer did what he knew best. The above-mentioned phenomenon, together with the healing of the island’s chief official, must have earned Paul the people’s trust. The people of the island stopped to listen to him. And he shared with them that wonderful gift he had received on that fateful day on the road to Damascus.

This is what real faith is all about. It is not merely something for me to keep. Rather, it is something to live and to share. The gift of faith our ancestors had received form Paul has been handed on to us through many generations.

After visiting the Grotto where, according to tradition, St Paul had stayed in Rabat, the Saint Pope John Paul II told the people gathered there that he “gave thanks to God for the rich harvest of faith and good works which he has brought forth among you since the Apostle of the Gentiles first proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ to your forebears.”
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It is up to us, now, to live it and share it. This would be the best way to thank and honor this great Apostle for what he gave us.