In between ‘Trick or Treat’ i.e. the Great Candy Gulp, and
‘le jour des morts’ in France where millions of potted chrysanthemums get put
on graves, there is ‘la Toussaint’, mainly known here as the date that gives
its name to a school vacation. It’s hard to get one’s mind around, rather like
the recent maps of the known Universe. All those ‘saints’, known and unknown –
and what is a saint, really, anyway?
To some, saints are great people in the faith, who have gone
before us, who are in Heaven around God, and to whom we can pray to put in a
good word for us, because, after all, God Himself is a bit august for little me
to be addressing. To others, all those who genuinely believe and who genuinely
try to make their lives conform to the model we have been given are Saints.
In both cases, the Sancti, the consecrated, the set-apart,
are a community of which we are a part. So who are the We who celebrate the
They, and conversely? We are the ones who are still slogging it out down here
(or in here, if you prefer Heaven out there to up there). We are the ones who
have to deal with daily brown stuff that hits the fan, and to whom prayer comes
in fits and starts when it comes at all.
They, on the other hand, have been there, done that. Some have been murdered for their faith
(alas, we still know about that happening); some have been great preachers who
have inspired hundreds if not thousands with their impassioned speech; some
have been immense minds who have spent their lives studying God’s thought and
meaning in the Scriptures and elsewhere, and communicating their findings to
the whole of the Church.
All of them have something to tell us, something to show us,
something we can and profitably might well emulate. All of them took their
faith seriously. All of them – even the martyrs, I suspect – took their faith
with peace and joy and humour. What can they do for us? For some of us, they
are the ones who can understand our prayers and pass them on to the Most High.
For others, they are models to be studied, venerated, given thanks for, and
emulated. In all cases, their stories are worth reading. One of the most
delicious books for the coffee-table, the study, the bedside table or the place
where kings go on foot, is a dictionary of saints. Not a life but is weirdly
fascinating.
They are all around us. We live in a world that breathes
creatures beyond our silly senses. Angels, and Saints. And maybe one day we
will march in their number: from New Orleans to the Gates of Heaven.
Thanks. I do so like the notion/comfort of intermediaries--that answers a quasi-fear of direct contact. And who would have thought that our own time would see a surge of martyrdoms? Crucifixions! Astounding. May they have had comfort at the end.
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