We are celebrating All Saints today - but who are
these Saints we celebrate?
The common
answer, I suppose, is that Saints are dead Christians who were most
particularly holy and close to God, either because they lived such exemplary Christian
lives, or because they died as martyrs for their faith in Jesus Christ.
But how can we be
sure that any particular individual is a Saint?
No one would doubt,
I suppose, that Jesus’s earthly family and close friends, and the Apostles and
Evangelists we meet in the NT, were very close to God and worthy to be called
Saints.
Later on, in the
first Christian centuries, local churches and dioceses quite informally came to
recognise other Saints, such as outstanding bishops, teachers, martyrs and
missionaries within their own area - this includes our many early Celtic Saints.
The process of
recognising Saints was gradually formalised over the years, until eventually in
the pre-Reformation Western Church it was accepted that only the Pope in Rome
could declare someone to be a Saint, after exhaustive enquiries and checks. By
now there are thousands of them. I have a RC ‘Book of Saints’ at home which has
alphabetical entries for almost 5,000 named Saints and groups of Saints,
starting with St Aaron – a C6th Breton Abbot, and ending with St
Zoticus – a C4th priest in Constantinople.
Today in the
calendar of the CofI we also celebrate St Malachy, a C12th archbishop of Armagh,
who was made a Saint in 1190 by Pope Clement III.
It is
particularly important for RCs to have certainty about who is a Saint, because
they believe in the intercession of Saints – that dead Saints can effectively
intercede on our behalf with God, if we ask them to in prayer. Only God truly
knows whether someone is a Saint, the theory goes, so no one is declared a
Saint until God has demonstrated this by performing miracles in answer to prayers
addressed to that person.
Most reformed
Christians reject this practice of asking Saints to intercede – Article 22 of the
39 Articles describes the invocation of Saints as ‘a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of
scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God’. Nevertheless, Anglicans
like us continue to honour Saints, at least those recognised before the Reformation.
But we do so as examples of holiness and faith, in order to strengthen and
encourage our own holiness and faith, and we do not ask them to intercede for
us.
The Church of
England has not declared any new Saints since the Reformation – with the odd
exception of Charles I, who was honoured for political reasons as St Charles
King & Martyr from the Restoration until 1859. But the Church of England
Calendar does list many later Christians as worthy of commemoration, without
explicitly calling them Saints. Not all of them are Anglican – they include for
instance: George Fox the Quaker, Oscar Romero the martyred Bishop of San
Salvador, and Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
We in the Church
of Ireland are more parsimonious, but the BCP
Calendar includes commemorations for two post-Reformation Bishops - Jeremy Taylor, bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore,
and Charles Inglis born in Raphoe, a bishop in North America.
All of these are
examples for us of holiness and faith – I suppose we might call them ‘heroes of
the Church’ – and we are at liberty, I think, to consider them Saints too if we
wish.
So far so good – but St Paul
in todays reading from Ephesians 1:11-23 gives us a completely different view on
who the saints are.
‘I have heard of your faith in the
Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints’, says Paul .
‘I pray that
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ … may give you a spirit of wisdom … so that
you may know what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints …
for us who believe’.
It is clear from
the context of this and other similar passages, that for St Paul the saints are all those who are ‘in Christ’,
both those alive who believe and follow Jesus as his disciples, and those who have
died. For the first Christians, the saints were not just exceptionally holy
people, but also ordinary Christians like you and me!
We are all saints
(with a small ‘s’) in this sense: we are sanctified, that is made holy, by being
made part of the body of Christ in his Church at our baptism – the English word ‘saint’ comes
from the Latin ‘sanctus’, meaning holy. Even though we know we are all sinners
if we are honest with ourselves. We are not particularly holy, we often feel
far from God – and, please God, we won’t be asked to die as martyrs. But we do try
to live good Christian lives, and when we fail we seek forgiveness and try
again. That is what makes us saints.
Those that we
recognise as Saints (with a big ‘S’) and heroes of the Church are different from
us in degree but not in kind – they too knew they were sinners. Even as
marvellous examples of holiness and faith worth celebrating, they were human
and fallible just like us. Remember, even the great St Peter was rebuked by Jesus with the
words, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan’.
I wouldn’t for a
moment suggest that we should celebrate ourselves – how horribly narcisistic
that would be – but surely at All Saints tide we should remember the saints
(with a small ‘s’) from whom we have received our own faith, whether they are
parents, teachers, friends, or others we have met on the way.
Since we are all saints, surely there are
implications for how we should live our lives.
And I think Jesus
spells them out for us very clearly in today’s 3rd reading from Luke’s Gospel (6:20-31).
First, as saints
we must never forget that we are blessed by God, whatever burdens we may carry.
Jesus tells us:
‘Blessed are you
who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry
now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you,
and defame you on account of the Son of Man … for surely your reward is great
in heaven.’
Second, as saints
Jesus tells us that we must obey what is often called the Golden Rule, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you’:
‘Love your
enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for
those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also;
and from anyone who takes your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to
everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for
them again.’
How difficult
these things are for ordinary, self-centred human beings! But they are commands
from the very lips of Jesus, the Son of God. Unless we do our best, however
poor, to follow them, we cannot claim to be part of the body of Christ, and we
are not worthy to be called saints, even with a small ‘s’. No wonder we need
the example of the Saints with a capital ‘S’ to show us that it is possible!
So to finish, as
we celebrate the lives of all the Saints, let us pray:
God our Father, by our baptism you made us your holy
people
and called us to share in the joy of your saints.
May your Holy Spirit encourage and strengthen us
to live for others as Jesus taught us.
We make this prayer to you in His name. Amen
