November 3rd we remember St. Martin de Porres. Born in Lima, Peru, in 1579, Martin’s father was a Spanish nobleman who abandoned Martin’s mother, a freed black woman and Martin and his sister. Abandoned children of mixed race, the two were looked down upon.
Martin learned how to nurse and care for the sick and apply medicines they needed. He applied to assist in the Dominican house in Lima, but they were hesitant to accept him as a member because of his race and the social barriers of the time. After awhile, recognizing his skills tending the sick, his holiness, and his generous care of the neighborhood poor. they received him into the order as a brother.
Martin is often shown with a broom surrounded by animals. Besides caring for the sick religious and the city’s poor, he cared for animals who came looking for scraps from the table.
Pope John XXIII canonized Martin in 1962 as the Second Vatican Council highlighted a plea for social justice in the world and a call for a church welcoming all people.
All Saints Day and All Souls Day belong together. On the Feast of All Saints we thank God for calling all to holiness as his children. All of us are called to be numbered among the saints of God.
On All Souls Day we remember that we are all weak and sinful and depend on the mercy of God. We can lose hope in our call, and so on All Souls Day we ask God’s mercy for ourselves and those who have gone before us in death.
Listen to our prayer at Mass:
“Remember, also, our brothers and sisters, who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection, and all who have died in your mercy. Welcome them into the light of your face. And have mercy on us all, we pray, that with the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the blessed Apostles and all the saints who have pleased you throughout the ages, we may be coheirs to eternal life and may praise and glory you, through your Son, Jesus Christ.( 2nd Eucharisitic Prayer)
We pray for all who hope in Christ’s resurrection, and also for “all who have died in your mercy.” All Souls is a day we pray for all who have died.
We begin our prayer on All Souls Day with St. Paul’s words to the Thessalonians and Corinthians, affirming God’s promise of eternal life to all humanity:
“Just as Jesus died and has risen again, so through Jesus God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep and as in Adam all die so also in Christ all will be brought to life.”
At the Communion of the Mass, we hear the words of Jesus:
“I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord. Whoever believes in me even though he die will live and anyone who believes in me will never die.”
Yet death saddens us; it can weaken our faith. Praying for the dead strengthens our faith and benefits those who have gone before us. In our opening prayer we ask for stronger faith.
Listen kindly to our prayers, O Lord, and, as our faith in your Son raised from the dead is deepened, so may our hope of resurrection for your departed servants also find new strength. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.
“It’s a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the living and the dead.” Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
About 22,000 years ago, the Laurentine Glacier began its retreat from North America. Our hill looking southeast to the Flatlands and the Atlantic Ocean is its terminal moraine, the last icy outpost of the glacier’s advance. Clover grew on Clover Hill as plants and trees gradually replaced the cover of ice. Birds, animals, finally humans followed the glacier’s retreat.
Terminal Moraine, Long Island public domain Gs Usa
By the late 19th century, Clover Hill, just up from the village of Jamaica, was uninhabited.
A photo today offers a different picture from our hill. A banner promises high quality used cars on busy Hillside Avenue below. Planes climb into the sky from Kennedy Airport. New apartment buildings crowd around the nearby station for the F train.
Billions of years before ice covered this hill, earth’s journey began. Where is it headed now? How will we take part in its journey? Is it just a few years about me? We won’t be here forever. We’re part of God’s great plan.
“I saw a new heaven and a new earth; I saw the holy city, and the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, as beautiful as a bride all dressed for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne, ‘You see this city? Here God lives among men. He will make his home among them; they shall be his people, and he will be their God.” (Revelations 21: 1-2)
We are blessed with an ancient stand of trees on our land surrounded by a crowded city. They brought stability to a land bound by ice long ago. They bring needed relief to us today.
Thomas Merton looking out at small pocket forests like ours from his monastery in Kentucky called them “the fifth column of the original forest that wants to return.” Once, by natural right, our land belonged to trees. Now, we welcome them for absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and water from floods. They offer shade from the sun. Going into the future, we do not have enough of them.
Different as they are, their roots communicate, scientists say. They crowd together offering strength and support to each other as they reach for the light.
“Learn from the fig tree and all the trees,” Jesus said. ( Luke 21:29 ) More of our learning needs to come from the trees.
we are “being built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord…” (Ephesians 2: 19-22)
Every month we celebrate a feast of an apostle. St. Cyril of Alexandria calls the apostles messengers to the world.
” Our Lord Jesus Christ has appointed certain men to be guides and teachers of the world and stewards of his divine mysteries. Now he bids them to shine out like lamps and to cast out their light not only over the land of the Jews but over every country under the sun and over people scattered in all directions and settled in distant lands.”
Jesus called his church to embrace people from every nation, time and place. The monthly celebration of apostles reminds us that our church is called to that mission.
We belong to a church described as a building, not a complete building, but one “being built.” It is a house meant for all the peoples of the world. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, holding everything together and ensuring it grows to the “sacred temple of the Lord.” The apostles and prophets are its foundation stones.
We may not see the church in our part of the world growing. It looks like it’s falling apart. Yet our church is bigger than we think. Its influence is growing worldwide. It is growing numerically worldwide. We see only part of the church.
The apostles brought their message to all the earth. Accounts of their missionary journeys may not all be historically true, but they were convinced of their universal mission. The apostles call us to this same universal mission.
“We have inherited heaven along with the apostles.” “On the foundations stones of the heavenly Jerusalem, the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are written,” That’s where we are headed, but now we see only so much..
Saints Simon and Jude, whose feast is October 28, are mentioned only a few times in the New Testament list of apostles, tenth and eleventh respectively. (Mark 3,13-19, Luke 6,12-16)
Simon is called `the Zealot,’ either because he was zealous for the Jewish law or because he was a member of the Zealot party, which sought to overthrow Roman domination by force.
Some of Jesus’ followers, the Gospels indicate, were hardly pacifists. Peter was ready to use his sword in the garden of Gethsemani when the temple guards came to seize Jesus; James and John told Jesus to call down fire from heaven on the hostile Samaritans whom they met on their journey to Jerusalem. So did Simon have thoughts of revolution when he answered Jesus’ call ?
Jude, called “Thaddeus” to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot, may be the brother of James, the son of Alphaeus, some interpreters of the Gospel say. If that’s so, he’s also a relative of Jesus. He may be the author of the Epistle of Jude in the New Testament.
Early Christian traditions – all difficult to prove historically – locate the ministry of these apostles in places as far apart as Britain and Persia. One important legend from 3rd century Syria says they were apostles to Syria. If so, we ask their intercession for that troubled land today.
Knowing little about apostles like Simon and Jude may be a good thing, because then we must see them as apostles, given a global mission. That’s why a feast of an apostle occurs every month They are foundations of the church universal, they belong to every time and place.
We care for our monastery garden, but we also let things grow as they will on our hillside meadow.
More than something to be managed, “ nature is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise…We’re not its masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits…
For that reason, St. Francis asked that part of the friary garden be left untouched, so that wild flowers and herbs could grow there, and those who saw them could raise their minds to God, the Creator of such beauty.”
I llive one block up from the 178th Street Subway, the “F” train, in Jamaica, New York City. Way back on old maps, this spot was called “Clover Hill”. Some clover still grows here but we’re surrounded now by tall buildings and crowded streets.
Clover Hill is part of the Harborhill terminal moraine left by the Laurentine Glacier that covered much of North American 22,000 years ago and stopped right here..
The Passionists, have been here since 1924. Our monastery, retreat center and parish are situated on Clover Hill. The city’s built up all around us, but we’re leaving a good part of our land to nature. St. Paul of the Cross, our founder, said that flowers and trees tell you about God, so listen. They’re preaching to you.
We have over 40 different kinds of trees here, our little forest remnant goes back in time. What sermons do they preach? They communicate with one another, scientists say. In fact, they don’t like growing alone. They like living together and helping one another, communicating through their roots. Even when they die, they nourish the next generation of plant life.
A good sermon for us humans, isn’t it?
Today, trees lessen the effects of climate change, and so we’re planting more trees on our land now for the cool shade they bring and the flood water they absorb. Cities need more trees now. Some years ago, New York City planted over 2 million trees along our streets for shade and drainage, and they’re planting more. We need all the trees we can get.
We’re planting vegetables on some of our land. They won’t give us all our food, but they remind us where our food comes from.
We’re also planting more flowers and native plants, not just because they’re beautiful and beauty draws us to God, but also they’re good pollinators for the many insects that make our land fruitful.
Like most people we have been mowing our lawns for years now. Yes, well kept lawns are respectable–and beautiful. But climate change is making us rethink that. It’s not just the energy expended on lawn mowers and fertilizers. We’re endangering the pollinators, the unseen army of insects that keep our lands healthy and fertile. So we are planting a pollinator garden.
We need more meadowlands, and meadowlands can be beautiful too. We’re moving towards that here on our hillside left by the glacier.
We’ve set solar panels over our parking lot. We need to move away from fossil fuels like oil and gas to alternate sources like solar power and geothermal energy to heat and cool and provide power for our homes and industries.
“Consider the lilies of the field”, Jesus said. “Learn a lesson from the fig tree and the other trees.” They have a sermon to preach, a sermon for today.
