All Saints Day offers a reminder that all people are called to be holy and to become saints, said Washington Auxiliary Bishop Robert P. Boxie III at a Nov. 1 Mass for the Solemnity of All Saints that he celebrated at Sacred Heart Church in Bowie, Maryland.
The bishop said that day harkens to the recruitment slogan for the U.S. Army – “Be all that you can be.”
“I think this slogan is a perfect theme for today’s feast day, because All Saints Day is really about being all that you can be – joining in the army of God’s holy men and women, the great multitude, who have left their mark on this world, each in their own way, both big and small. You and I are called to join them in the service of the Gospel as disciples of our commander and Lord, Jesus Christ,” Bishop Boxie said in his homily.
Holiness, he said, “is striving to be like Christ every day, to be like him. It is the roadmap to ‘be all that you can be.’”
The patron saints for every occupation and situation and season in life embody that slogan, the bishop said.
After the choir led the congregation in singing the opening hymn, “For All the Saints,” Father Michael Russo, the pastor of Sacred Heart Parish, welcomed Bishop Boxie for his first visit to the parish.
“Today on this great Solemnity of All Saints, we are doing something new in our parish community. You may be aware in the past four years we have been undertaking the corporal and spiritual works of mercy in caring for our cemetery and reclaiming and rediscovering lost parts of it,” Father Russo said.
Sacred Heart’s pastor noted that, “To date, we have found anywhere between 600 to 900 unmarked or lost graves in the woods. We have developed, through the work of our cemetery committee and researchers on it, a list of 2,400 names of people who should be buried here, and we know about where one-half (of them) are, by name. In addition, we are missing about 150 years of records. So there are many more people buried here than there are named headstones in our cemetery. So what we are doing today is offering this Mass for all those buried here on our parish grounds, those whom we know, and especially those who are known only to God.”
The present-day Sacred Heart Church and its historic chapel and cemetery are located at the site of the White Marsh Plantation, one of seven early Jesuit missions in Maryland. In recent years, archaeological surveys on the cemetery’s hillside have uncovered what are believed to be the unmarked graves of hundreds of enslaved people who lived, worked and died at the White Marsh Plantation in the 1700s and 1800s before Emancipation.
Bishop Boxie in his opening remarks at the Mass expressed thanks to Father Russo “for the great work you and your parish have been doing to reclaim the history, this heritage, of our brothers and sisters who have gone before us.”
The bishop said he felt a special kinship with Sacred Heart Parish in Bowie, because his home parish is Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church in Lake Charles, Louisiana. “Everywhere I go to another Sacred Heart Parish, I feel a special bond with the people there. I feel like we are connected in a real way,” he said.
His mother, Roxanne Boxie, and his sister Robyn Boxie were visiting from Louisiana and attended the Mass.
In his homily, Bishop Boxie said the feast of All Saints is one of his favorite days of the year, that together with All Souls Day begins what he likes to call “a liturgical family reunion,” where Catholics come together to remember the men and women from all backgrounds who are in heaven, seeing God face-to-face. “Today is our future feast day, because all of us are called to be saints,” he said.
Bishop Boxie said All Saints Day is very meaningful to him, because he first heard the call to priesthood on that day more than three decades ago, when as a third grader he portrayed St. Francis Xavier at a school Mass.
The bishop commended Sacred Heart Parish for fostering many vocations to the priesthood, religious life, permanent diaconate, to marriage and family life and to single life. “So many sons and daughters of this parish have heard God’s call and responded generously to it,” he said.
He also offered personal thanks to the Knights of Columbus council at the parish for sponsoring him while he was in the seminary. “Your prayers, your encouragement and your support created a bishop,” he said.
Bishop Boxie noted that the Beatitudes given by Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount, words that were proclaimed in that day’s Gospel reading from Matthew 5:1-12, offer a “self-portrait of a life in Christ” and show what holiness looks like.
The bishop tied examples of everyday holiness to the phrases of the Beatitudes.
“Holiness is… when I don’t feel like praying or coming to Mass, or when I’m so overwhelmed with life or kids and everything going on, but I choose to come anyway – ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,’” he said. “Holiness is when I grieve the loss of a loved one, especially one who has been taken away suddenly or tragically by cancer or an accident, or one who has lost memories or basic life functions through a debilitating condition… but I remain with them, take care of them and love them – ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’”
Bishop Boxie said that when family members make sacrifices for their spouses and children and put their needs above their own, that reflects “Blessed are the meek;” and when people seek God’s grace and help to avoid sins of the flesh, that reflects the Beatitude, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”
When someone works to heal wounds and divisions in a family or strained relationships with friends or colleagues, that reflects “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” the bishop said.
And he compared the Beatitude of “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” with the parish’s work to remember and honor the enslaved who are believed to be buried in unmarked graves on the cemetery grounds.
“Holiness is particularly when a faith community like yours works to right the wrongs of the past and give dignity to those enslaved men and women… who were denied that same dignity in life while they lived on this land,” Bishop Boxie said.
The bishop encouraged people to follow the example of the saints and to go to Confession.
“Confession washes our sins away, our souls are made clean, we are given the grace that we need to strive for greatness, for holiness, that continual conversion of heart, handing over our sins, our shortcomings, our failings, our grudges, all of that to God, so that God can make us and call us to be all that we can be,” he said.
And he encouraged people to seek the intercession, the protection, the guidance and the friendship of a patron saint. “I personally have a team of saints, because I need a lot of help right now. I need a lot of help in this new ministry,” said Bishop Boxie, who was ordained as an auxiliary bishop for Washington in July.
Concluding his homily, the bishop quoted Pope Francis, who said, “Holiness is the most attractive face of the Church.”
“Be that face of the Church. Be all that you can be,” Bishop Boxie said before offering the prayer, “All holy men and women, saints of God… pray for us!”
On All Saints Day at Sacred Heart in Bowie, there was a late afternoon celebration on the hill that included food, a bonfire and the praying of the litany of the saints. Then on Nov. 2, All Souls Day, a 7 p.m. Mass was to be offered in the Sacred Heart Chapel for all parishioners who have died in the last year, followed by people praying together at the cemetery before lighting a candle on each marked grave.
On Saturday Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. at Sacred Heart Church, a Fauré Requiem concert will be performed to commemorate the feasts of All Saints and All Souls, featuring choir members of Sacred Heart Parish in Bowie and from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Crofton, with a chamber orchestra and soloists. Tickets will be sold online at sacredheartbowie.org.
On Sunday Nov. 15, a Mass and Commemoration of those Enslaved on the White Marsh Plantation will be held at Sacred Heart, beginning with a 10 a.m. Mass in the main church celebrated by Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, the archbishop of Washington, and there will be a dedication of a memorial in the church. After the Mass, a walking tour of the cemetery will be led by the White Marsh Historical Society. Then at noon there will be a ceremony at the cemetery on the hill, where a proclamation from Maryland Gov. Wes Moore will be read, honoring the enslaved buried at that site. Sacred Heart Church is located at 16501 Annapolis Road in Bowie, Maryland.
