This weekend we celebrate All Saints Day and we move from the Gospel of Mark to a well-known passage from the Gospel of Matthew. This section of Matthew’s Gospel actually has its own name. It’s called the Sermon on the Mount. When people initially hear the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, they tend to say something like, “Oh isn’t that nice” and then kind of dismiss it as just “sweet words.” Hearing “Blessed are the merciful…Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, etc” as opposed to “Thou shall not kill…thou shall not bear false witness, etc” is a lot easier on the ears…and the heart! Whole books have been written about individual beatitudes and, when you read any of these books and reflect upon their message, you soon realize that living the Beatitudes is a huge challenge. I would say that this huge challenge is one that many of us dismiss as much too difficult. The SAINTS, those people we celebrate today, accepted the challenge of the Beatitudes to be meek and merciful, to hunger and thirst for righteousness and to work for peace. We, too, can grow in holiness when we live Beatitude Lives of integrity truth, justice, charity, mercy, and compassion. The Saints probably have a bad image. We tend to think of them as very pious people who spent their days on their knees, praying the rosary. Not so for most of them!!! The saints are our role models. Read the lives of a few saints and you will see that they are mostly ordinary people who were able to key into Christ’s holy life of love, mercy, and unconditional forgiveness. As Mother Teresa used to say to her sisters…Do ordinary things with great love. Gospel Homework for the Week: Take some time this week to read and reflect on the Beatitudes.