BLOG 12/27/15. LET’S TALK ABOUT SAINTS
On this Sunday after Christmas, let’s talk about the church’s saints (not the New Orleans Saints, please!). The English word that come’s to us as saint is from a Greek word that has to do with someone set apart to a unique life dedicated to God’s purpose. When the apostle is addressing his letter to the Christian folk at Corinth, he addresses them as ‘saints’ (as it comes to us in our English translation). That ultimately means that all those who have embraced Jesus Christ as God’s Son and Savior are thereby ‘saints’.
But along the way, in the Catholic tradition, the church made a saint to be a person who was somehow exceptional, … maybe had performed miracles or in some way become a model for the church. In recent days we have read in the news of Pope Francis promoting Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, to sainthood, and both are, to be sure, remarkable models of Christian witness in risky political and humanitarian contexts. Over the centuries there have been hundreds of faithful Christian persons who have been ‘beatified’ or made to be saints by the church. The church has, then, made the day of their beatification a special day to observe their role and to celebrate their witness.
What brings this to my mind on this Sunday after Christmas is that in the listing of the dates of special feast days, or days of observing such models, the day after Christmas is the Feast of St. Stephen the Martyr—which is interesting because it reminds us that one can get killed by being faithful to Jesus and his gospel. Then on December 27 come the Feast of St. John the Apostle, to acknowledge this giant figure among the apostles. But then on December 28th comes one that I have never heard anyone spend much time on because it is too painful: The Feast of the Massacre of the Innocents (or, a bit less grotesque sounding: The Feast of the Holy Innocents). This reminds us also, as I noted in an earlier blog, that we live in a world full of horrible injustices and atavistic vengeances. In our current world this massacre is duplicated somewhere almost every day, even among the racial and ethnic prejudices and indifferences of our own North American society.
I became alerted to this Catholic tradition of saints because of my administrative secretary in my former residence. She was a devout Catholic with New England (Radcliffe College) roots, and went most days, on her lunch hour, to Mass at the local Catholic church down the street, and would bring me back the (I think they were called) missalettes, which usually contained a note about the saint who was being honored on that day in their calendar. This fascinated me. There were all of these obscure names that I had never come across, but who had done remarkable things in remote times and places. Amazing. Most of them undoubtedly lived and died never knowing their influence, and probably trudging through difficult circumstances out of sheer faith in the God whom they had not seen but loved.
So I took the next step and found on Amazon a book that listed the Roman Catholic saints. It actually heartened me. Here were these dear people in settings of darkness and pain and persecution, and yet living faithfully as agents of faith and hope and love among their peers. Then, take the next step, and realize that such is what each of us is called to be and do, who express our faith and love for Jesus as the daily incarnation of his New Creation, who accept our role as the flesh and blood human expressions of God’s glory, the radiant display of his image, or his divine excellence (cf. II Peter 1:2-4). What an awesome calling. “O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold, Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old, and win with them the victor’s crown of gold. O blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine. Alleluia.”
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