There is a priest I know, he and his family compete in Ironman Triathlons. So, they complete 3 events: swimming, biking and running a marathon. It starts off with a 2.4 mile swim, followed by 112 miles of bicycling and a 26.2 mile marathon after that. He loves this one town that they go to every year, a little town in British Columbia. The reason he likes the town is the way that the marathon is set up. At the end, when they are running, they run away from the town for thirteen and a half miles and then they come back for the rest of it. The other caveat is in that town you have to get to the finish line by midnight. If you don’t get there by midnight, it doesn’t count.
He was there one year running and he and his family got done around ten o’clock. They went to the local tavern to get something to eat and then they came to cheer on the other runners coming back in; the whole town kind of comes together towards the evening as it gets close to midnight. As the other runners are running, the crowd begins to grow and begins to cheer more and more for them to cross the line. He said there was this one year and there was 15 minutes left and there was this one guy who hadn’t made it across the finish line yet. The guy at the finish line, who was making the announcement, said that the runner has two miles left and he’s fifteen minutes away. Now, I don’t know if you are runners or not but two seven-minute miles at the end of a marathon is…I can’t even run a seven-minute mile!
So, this is the end of it and the priest is thinking this just isn’t going to happen for this guy. Well, the town begins to not only cheer for him but some of the people start to run back a mile where the guy is and they met him and they started running along next to him, screaming and cheering and encouraging him. He makes the next mile in seven minutes and he’s got eight minutes for the last mile. They cheer him all the way across the finish line and he makes it there just moments before midnight!
I think of that as being the Communion of Saints. As we come here to celebrate Mass, we’re joined by all the Angels and Saints. It’s like we are coming to the finish line right here. The Communion of Saints, we believe, are interceding for us. They are constantly interceding for us; they are constantly cheering us on, they are constantly celebrating and trying to encourage us to keep running the race, to keep fighting the good fight. I think it’s important for us to realize that we do have this wonderful, amazing Communion of Saints who are always interceding for us.
Life can get so discouraging sometimes and we just need a little bit of encouragement, right? We have thousands and thousands of, millions probably, of saints that are encouraging and just cheering us on. And so perhaps there’s something in your life right now that you feel is holding you back from being a saint. Maybe there’s that thing in your life that you feel like you just have never been able to beat, that you’ve never been able to overcome. Maybe it’s even just getting yourself to mass every Sunday. Whatever that is, when we realize that we are just about to give up or just about to give in or get discouraged or think that we are not going to make it, try to hear the Saints, try to realize that they are interceding for you. Try to realize that they are cheering for you, they’re vying for you, they are doing everything that they can to support us to bring us across that finish line to heaven.
God wants us all to be saints; He wants us all to get to that finish line before midnight, before our death, and we have this Communion of Saints interceding for us. On this All Saints Day, try to remember your own patron saints, your namesake, your confirmation saint. Think all the saints that are interceding, saints that you didn’t even realize existed, are all interceding on your behalf. All of them are cheering you on, desiring for nothing more than for you to cross that finish line and enter into Heaven.
