The Saints Are Not Strangers
Matthew 5:1-12

Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF
Claretian Missionaries

We have a strange relationship with the saints. We admire them from a distance. We put their statues on pedestals. We light candles before their images. We name our churches after them. And in all of this, we quietly separate ourselves from them. They are holy. We are not. They are the heroes of the faith. We are the spectators. We have turned the saints into a different category of human being. And in doing so, we have excused ourselves from the call that their lives proclaim.

But I once met a saint. A living woman. A small, wrinkled, bent woman. I was a theology student in Shillong, thousands of kilometers from home. To travel home for holidays, I had to take a three-day train from Guwahati. Waiting for the train meant staying overnight with the Salesians near Don Bosco School. That evening, Mother Teresa was in the school for a formal gathering with the Chief Minister, the Archbishop, and every dignitary the city could produce.

I was in casual clothes, ready for a dusty train ride. But when I saw the crowd, I felt the weight of the moment. And I made a plan. I went back to my room, put on formal clothes, and hung my camera around my neck like a press photographer. I passed through the security guards of the Chief Minister with my heart in my mouth and went straight down the center aisle, pretending to be official, and captured a photograph of Mother Teresa just in time, as she was concluding her speech. I stood close to the stage until the felicitation function ended. Then I rushed to kneel before her. In the middle of the chaos, surrounded by dignitaries and security, I asked her to bless me. I told her I was preparing to be a priest. She placed her wrinkled hands on the crown of my bowed head and muttered, “Be a holy priest.”

Be a holy priest. Not a successful priest. Not a popular priest. A holy one. That is all. I have carried those words for decades. They were not a compliment. They were a summons. A call to the one thing that matters. And they came from the hands of a woman who was, by any measure, a saint. She was not distant. She was not on a pedestal. She was right there, close enough to touch. Her hands were wrinkled. Her voice was soft. Her words were simple. And in that moment, I learned something I have never forgotten. The saints are not strangers. They are people we can meet. People who speak to us, bless us, and call us to the same road.

The Gospel today gives us the map of that road. The Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are they who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the clean of heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. These are not conditions to be admired. They are doors to be entered. They are the shape of the life that every one of us is invited to live.

And Mother Teresa embodied them. She was poor in spirit—she owned nothing and possessed everything. She mourned—she wept over the dying and the abandoned. She was meek—she wielded no power and bowed before the lowliest. She hungered for justice—she spent her life among the poorest of the poor. She was merciful—she held the dying in her arms. She was clean of heart—she saw God in every face. She was a peacemaker—she stood between factions and violence. And she was persecuted—mocked, doubted, criticized. She did not just preach the Beatitudes. She lived them. One small act at a time. One dying person at a time. One day at a time. For a lifetime.

This is the deeper truth of All Saints. The saints are not strangers. They are family. They had tempers. They had fears. They had doubts. Augustine was a hedonist. Francis was a spoiled rich kid. Ignatius was a soldier who loved glory. The saints are not people who never fell. They are people who kept getting up. People who kept turning back to God. People who let grace do in them what they could not do for themselves.

And here is the promise that All Saints proclaims. What God did in them, God wants to do in us. The communion of saints is not a distant reality. It is the family into which we have been baptized. It is the cloud of witnesses that surrounds us. We are not alone. We are not the first to walk this path. We are not the last. We belong.

The Beatitudes are not a checklist for canonization. They are the way of love. They are the path that every saint walked. And they are the path that is still open to us. The question is not whether we are holy enough. The question is whether we will take the next step. The question is not whether we are saints. The question is whether we are willing to become one.

So on this day, I am asking myself: Have I separated myself from the saints? Have I put them on pedestals and excused myself from the call? Have I believed that holiness is for others? Saintliness requires a beginning to take the first hesitating step on the path of the Beatitudes. The path of the poor in spirit. The path of the mourning. The path of the meek. The path of the merciful. The path of the clean of heart. The path of the peacemakers. The path of the persecuted. The path of the saints.

The saints are not strangers. They are our family. They are the ones who show us that the path is possible. They are cheering us on. They are praying for us. They are waiting for us. And one day, by the grace of God, we will join them. Not because we deserve it. Not because we earned it. But because we kept walking. We kept trusting. We kept loving. And the one who began the good work in us will bring it to completion.

All you holy men and women, pray for us. And Mother Teresa, pray for me. That I may be a holy priest. That we may all become saints.

© Claretian Publications, Macau 2026
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