During November we celebrate the feasts of All Saints, All Souls, and Christ the King. Toward the end of November, we also begin Advent when we prayerfully, and patiently await Christ’s birth and his second coming.
In no. 2013 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it says, “All Christians in any state of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity. All are called to holiness. ‘Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.’” All Saints Day is a holy day which we celebrate on November 1.
We honor those who have been canonized and whom the Church declares are surely in Heaven.
Kendrick Castillo’s heroic act
We also honor the uncanonized saints of the Church, those who lived a holy Christ-like life and are surely in Heaven. Kendrick Castillo, an 18-year-old teen is surely one of them.
On May 7, 2019, a school shooting occurred at Stem School Highlands Ranch, a charter school located near Littleton, Colo., where another shooting occurred a few years earlier.
Two shooters went into the school carrying handguns and other weapons hidden in guitar cases.
One of the shooters entered a classroom, pulled out a gun, and yelled, “Nobody move!” Kendrick Ray Castillo immediately jumped on him and was fatally shot in the chest. Kendrick’s shooting enabled two other students the precious seconds they needed to disarm the shooter. It also enabled other students equally precious seconds to flee to safety.
An emotional John Castillo praised his kind-hearted son as a hero.
“I want people to know about him,” he told ABC News. He also told NBC that he talked with Kendrick sometime before the shooting about what to do in a school shooting.
He advised him, “You don’t have to be the hero.”
His son, who wanted to study electrical engineering in college, insisted he would act. “Dad, you raised me this way. You raised me to be a good person. That’s what I would do.”
Castillo said the coroner told him that his son, an only child, took gunfire that would have harmed other students, according to the Denver Post.
“He cared enough about people that he would do something like that, even though it’s against my better judgment,” Castillo told the newspaper. “I wish he had hid, but that’s not his character. His character is about protecting people, helping people.”
Kendrick was a faithful Catholic who received a Catholic burial. He helped his dad in the Knights of Columbus and lobbied for many hours of community service.
In his funeral homily, Bishop Jorge H. Rodriquez of Denver called Kendrick “a holy young man” and “a good disciple of Jesus Christ.”
“Kendrick gave everything he is and everything he had — family, a future, a degree, his life — so other young men and women could go back to their families, have a future, graduate, and live. Only a young man with God in his heart and possessing a big, good heart can do what he did: to lay down his life to save his friends. At the end of life, we will be examined on one thing only, our love. Kendrick’s life is like the echo of Jesus’ words,” Bishop Rodriguez said, quoting John 15:13. “‘Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.’”
No greater love is this
In John 15:12-14, Jesus tells his apostles and us, “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
“You are my friends if you do what I command you, ‘This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.’”
In paragraphs 2013-14 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church it says, “All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity. All are called to holiness.”
St. Maria Goretti was an 11-year-old girl who had recently made her First Communion.
Eighteen-year-old Alessandro tried to force her to commit fornication. She refused. So, he stabbed her 14 times. As she died, she not only forgave him but prayed that Alessandro, her enemy, would repent and not go to Hell. Christ surely was in Maria’s heart.
On All Saints’ Day, we honor not just canonized saints, but all who enjoy the happiness of Heaven, whether canonized or not, and we hope that our loved ones, relations, and friends are among the saints of Heaven who now enjoy the happiness promised by the Beatitudes in the Gospel.
All Christians are called to holiness.
Fr. Donald Lange is a pastor emeritus in the Diocese of Madison.