(Please read the passage cited above first.)
My sisters and brothers,
Last Sunday my family and I had a family reunion, virtually. My nephew, whom we had discovered a year ago, “came”. He is the son of my older brother, but my brother had died two years before we found his son. He had been adopted at birth and moved out of state.
My sister adopted another of my nephews at his birth in much the same conditions.
Both nephews had searched for their birth parents for many years. They had many gaps in their lives, not knowing their birth parents and siblings. Their adopting parents loved them and cared for them, but they also wanted to know many things about their history and birth families.
We are children of God because God has made us his children. We have no need to make our lives whole by knowing more about our history. There are no gaps in our life with God because has never abandoned us and has been with us always. God does not cast us out or pass us over to others to bring us up. God always loves us and is always present to us. (I hope we see this in our lives.)
God has made us his children. For this reason God calls us to be holy (saints). In fact we are saints because we are God’s children. We have to imitate God, our Parent. We must be holy because God is holy.
Some saints are in heaven in the glory of God, but many of us are saints on earth. All of us, children of God, have to be holy. We cannot escape this obligation to be holy.
This solemnity is our feast, the feast of all saints, those in heaven and those of us still on earth.