Laying out the calendar for the month to come, the one on which we schedule the priests to celebrate the Mass, I was called up short searching for saints. Usually, I like to highlight a day or two for its feast; last month I noted JPII on the 22nd, Simon and Jude on the 28th, and a big favorite, Our Lady of Victory, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, on the 7th. But for November, I came up blank.
Not that there lacks great liturgical days to mark, starting right out the chute with All Saint and All Souls batting first and second. Christ the King Himself arrives three weeks later, then the next week, the First Sunday of (gasp) Advent. (Yes, already). There are civic days of substance to be kept as well, Veterans Day on the eleventh, and the national solemnity of Thanksgiving, parts one and deux, on the 26th and 27th. I would be inclined to note Saint Martin, but the Veterans take all the space allowed for text on the 11th. Who else IS there in November?
In desperation, I inscribed the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. Yawn. Truly that is desperate, even with the drumbeat of year’s end growing loud. I finally had to look at a calendar and decided to include St. Leo the Great on the tenth, and the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica (I am reaching I admit) on the ninth. Then I recalled Saint Andrew, Apostle and neighborly patron, who breaks the purple pattern first thing Monday after First Advent. Now the calendar looks more populated.
The civil and seasonal celebrations are noteworthy and not to be underestimated. I enjoy Thanksgiving as a genuine holiday that I can enjoy because it does not bring me also a load of liturgical responsibilities. I take Veterans Day seriously and even stir in some of its original Armistice Day; though I am not a veteran, indeed because I am not a veteran, I am especially inclined to offer respect and gratitude to veterans. Christ the King is a day of greatness, and First Advent begins what may be the most delightful liturgical time of the year; it is beyond me why anybody would trade its rich, multi-layered artistry of anticipation for the bell-ringing red and green rampage of generic, manic “happy holidays.”
Still, I wanted for the month some personality or, more precisely, personalitIES. I am glad I checked; Leo was man of the millennium in many ways, and his homilies still ring clear and true. Andrew, clearly no slouch, got his brother the interview for the job of all jobs. And do not neglect Martin, who has more churches and towns named after him in France than anybody else because he really was just that awesome. It really does help to have names and faces to present the holiness to which we often refer as if it were an abstractable affect like happiness, or golden liquid that comes by the jug.
Think about your life’s sections or spans divided however you choose. You will mark the times by any number of things – what you were doing, where you were living, the weather, the wardrobe, or (God help you) the politics. But inextricably mixed in with those other identifying factors you will also name the people who were with you. Your mom and dad, your brothers and sisters, your best friend in fifth grade, your teacher, your coach, your big date, your wingman, your roommate, the first person to hire you, the only person to fire you, your son and your daughter, the one who said yes. People with names and faces indelible in your mental lifescape, these are defining realities that give sense to everything else that you were thinking and doing and avoiding and accomplishing.
This is why I was searching for saints’ names to populate the days of November. In this month when heat and light dissipate, signs of life literally drop to the ground, and darkness defines the day as well as the night, great is the craving for company to be kept.
So begins this month with the two “All” days, of saints and souls, because the roster falls short just as the need grows strong. These “all” are not faceless throngs, nameless multitudes, but rather souls we know and love and need, names that come readily to our lips. Faces and names, relationships that reveal us to ourselves, these are the people whose faces we seek and whose names we repeat in both memory and prayer, for whom and from who we crave more. More time, even unto eternity; more together, even unto intimacy with neither grudge nor reticence remaining.
Souls alike, and souls together, bound by happenstance or by love, our desire but a shadow of God’s desire but still strong, we remember what He has done in them and through them and make daily our petition that they with us be all saints.
Monsignor Smith
