All Saints

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All Saints Day, blessed, compassion, fidelity, goodness, holy, kindness, love, saints, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today we join with people all over the world in solemn celebration of those we call “saint.” It is one of those days when each of the several lectionary readings begs for attention as they all echo the wondrous history of holy men and women, known and unknown, whose stories tell of the power and love of God. These are the “canonized” saints – the ones recognized by our Churches from the earliest days of Christianity. Should we choose, we could go all the way back in the Hebrew Scriptures to find names like Abraham and Moses, Ruth and Isaiah. Always there have been those who have served the God whose kindness and compassion have endured forever.

Today we understand as well the value of those heroes of love and fidelity whose names may be lost but whose service to God and humanity remains as a light in centuries of love and good works. Listen, if you will, to words that speak of such goodness and call us to emulate people we know on this universal day of celebration. Create your own litany of those you call “saint” and consider how you may sit in their company.

1. (RV 7:2-4, 9-14): Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, “Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?”…”These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
2. (PS 24) Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord? or who may stand in his holy place? One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean, who desires not what is vain. They shall receive a blessing from the Lord…
3. (1 JN 3:1-3) Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are.
4. (MT 11:28) Alleluia! Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest, says the Lord.
5. (MT 5: 1-12A) Blessed are…Rejoice and be glad for your reward will be great in heaven.

Everyday Saints

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All Saints Day, Matthew, Revelation, saints, survive, The Beatitudes, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

On this feast of All Saints, I look at the time at the top of my computer screen as I type and find that it is – ironically – 9:11 a.m. Last night the winds were howling (How fitting for Halloween) and rain was pelting on our windows late into the night. Thinking of California as I lay awake, how I wished that we could stop the wind and send the rain to put out the fires there! I have a feeling of devastation that is different from 9/11/2001 but still catastrophic as I pray for the safety of our Sisters of the Los Angeles province and all of the people on the news whose houses have been reduced to ashes.

With all of that in mind, I turn to Scripture readings for the day where I find “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress” from the Book of Revelation. That sounds a little like today so then I ask myself, “Who are the saints of today?” I am quick to answer: “First responders.” But I can’t stop there. The networks of people who step up at catastrophic moments are legion and then there are the everyday saints who respond to their neighbors as a matter of course, wherever there is a need. See today’s gospel for the Beatitudes as an explanation of that kind of sainthood. (MT 5: 1-12)

We have our favorite canonized saints, of course: Francis and Clare, Therese and Teresa…and even some named in our own lifetime now – Pope Saint John XXIII, etc. On this day, however, my prayer list is wide and long of good people that I celebrate and for whom I give praise and gratitude to God. Why not share their names if you know them and pray to or for them, as the case may be? Maybe you will hear your own name coming back at you from this “great cloud of witnesses.”

All Saints/All Souls

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All Saints Day, All Souls Day, departed, faithful departed, loved ones, saint, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There has always been a twinning in my religious tradition of first two days of November. The first is, as we saw yesterday, the celebration of all those people whom the Church has recognized – for various reasons – as worthy of the designation “saint.” In one way, I always thought in my youth that today was more important because we were praying with all our might to get our relatives and friends released from any sinfulness that still clung to them as they left the earth, thereby speeding them on to heaven. It was the only day that priests were allowed to celebrate three Masses in one day and we all spent the day petitioning God to hear our constant prayers for our loved ones.

These days it’s common for people to think of the “faithful departed” closer to us than they used to be when heaven was a faraway place to which we ascended. Now we say things like “the veil is very thin” and we sometimes feel our loved ones very close, praying for us, perhaps, and cheering us on in the everyday. My list of “cheerleaders” gets longer as I get older (as with all of us) and it is a comfort to know that what the Church calls the “great cloud of witnesses” is on my side. So today is now a day not only to pray for those loved ones who have departed this realm but also to pray to them and with them for the good of all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Saints

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All Saints Day, canonized, sainthood, saints, St. Paul, Tenley Albright, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

With all the ghosts and goblins back in their hiding places and many candies and other treats already consumed, Christians turn today to the annual celebration of All Saints. When I was young I thought of today as sort of a “consolation prize” for all the people whose names were not listed as official (i.e. “canonized”) saints. I was happy enough to know that St. Ann(e) was the grandmother of Jesus, given to make me a legitimate baptized Christian as my middle name back when I was born. Some people wanted to attribute the sainthood of Lois to St. Louis IX, king of France, but I wasn’t really interested in that, although in a pinch it was rather prestigious.

Today I prefer the perspective of St. Paul who addressed all those who listened to his preaching as saints. Perhaps he was clear on the fact that no one still alive ought to add the title “Saint” as a prefix to their first name, but preferred to assume that we were all working toward that designation and that the possibility still existed until we had taken our last breath.

I was musing on that fact, happy that the seed of a blog post was already in me as I came awake this morning. Just at the same moment for no reason I can imagine, the name Tenley Albright came to mind. That was one of those names that seems as if it were made up by parents who wanted something unique for their child but perhaps it was a family last name that was unfairly thrust upon an innocent baby. Tenley Albright was famous when I was a child, especially known to me because she was born in Newton, Massachusetts as I was. Tragedy was turned into gift for Tenley when she was given skating as physical therapy after being struck with polio at age eleven. She became one of the most decorated skaters in American history and went on to become a surgeon and faculty member at Harvard Medical School.

Certainly Tenley Albright would be in the running for the honor of sainthood, but I’m with St. Paul and my vote is with all those skaters who get up every morning and do their best no matter how many times they fall in practice. That would include all the parents who drive their sons and daughters to practices and events and all the teachers who have those students in their classrooms and all the checkout clerks in the grocery stores who stand on their feet all day facilitating the distribution of the food that farmers (also saints) grow for us, and so on and on and on…to all people of good heart and good cheer who are making their way to eternity and on whom God smiles for their efforts.

 

 

 

 

 

Those Gone Before Us

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All Saints Day, All Souls Day, departed, God's presence, loved one, Office for the Dead, Peace, prayer, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There are some interesting notes today in the text from Fr. Don Miller (http://www.franciscanmedia.com) about this “All Souls Day.” The first is the story of the emergence of such a remembrance. It was in the middle of 11th century, says Father Miller, that “St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny, France, decreed that all Cluniac monasteries offer special prayers and sing the Office for the Dead on November 2, the day after the feast of All Saints. The custom spread from Cluny and was finally adopted throughout the Roman Church.”

I am partial, however, to a second notable thought that appears in the reflection section following the historical statements. Fr. Miller writes: …prayer for a loved one is, for the believer, a way of erasing any distance, even death. In prayer, we stand in God’s presence in the company of someone we love, even if that person has gone before us into death. I find that a sweet comfort as I image myself standing between my cousins, Paul and Jim, who have left us in this past year, and when I find myself in the circle of the four Sisters of St. Joseph who have gone before us during the past month. As I remain quietly in these two saintly companies, I hear St. Paul preaching to the Romans in the familiar words: The souls of the just are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them…They are in peace.

May all of our dear departed ones rest in peace. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Saints

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All Saints Day, Blessed Mother, canonized, earnest, faith, genuine, martyrdom, sainthood, saints, sincere, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Timothy, wholehearted

Today, the feast of All Saints in Western Christianity, always seemed to me in my younger days as sort of a “catch-all” for those of us who were not named after a canonized saint: a holy person (often a martyr for the faith) proclaimed as such by a Church celebration and venerated on their own special day. It was a relief to me that my middle name was Ann so that I lived under the protection of the Blessed Mother’s mother. Actually I found it pretty cool to have the grandmother of Jesus as my patron saint! Otherwise I would have had to settle for St. Louis – not the city but a King of France. Later I also found Lois in the Scriptures at the beginning of the second letter to Timothy: I find myself thinking of your sincere faith – faith which first belonged to your grandmother Lois and to your mother Eunice, and which I am confident that you also have. (2 TM 1:4-5) That convinced me that I was covered on both counts – first and middle names – and that it was lucky to have two extra grandmothers to watch over me.

This morning I was thinking about what makes a person worthy of the title “saint” and for some reason (before I was even thinking about Timothy’s grandmother) the word that came to me was sincere. Knowing that St. Paul called all those who received his letters “saints” made me conclude – as the Church has – that martyrdom isn’t the only way to be considered as a saint. Maybe we can only be called “saints in the making” but I think sincerity is a good place to start defining. Sincere, Merriam Webster says, means wholehearted, heartfelt, unfeigned, genuine in feeling, absent of hypocrisy, embellishment or exaggeration, earnest devotedness…

As I go through this day I expect to encounter a number of people who are on their way to sainthood. I will try to pay attention to the ways they act out that potential and maybe have a fuller definition by nightfall. Won’t you join me in the search?

All Saints

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All Saints Day, canonized, Dalai Lama, grace, holiness, hope, Jesus, miracles, piety, Pope Leo XIII, religious practice, Roman Catholic, saint, social justice, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is one of the few days in the Roman Catholic Church that the liturgy of a Sunday is superseded by the celebration of a special feast on the liturgical calendar. Today’s feast of All Saints gives us pause, not only to think about those people throughout history who have been named by the Church as deserving of the title “saint” (those whom the Church has “canonized”) but also to reflect on what it means to be a saint. We often hear people speak of someone who has suffered many trials (e.g. those with many unruly children) as a saint. “That woman is a saint,” they say! In that case it seems that sainthood resides in the person’s ability to show grace under pressure or to endure what might make others lash out and turn to violence. We might hear also, “He’s a saint – in church every morning without fail, never without his rosary…” which tells us that religious practice and personal piety are the means to sainthood. And then there are those who speak out on issues of social justice, demanding that governments care for the less fortunate and those whose dignity is ignored. We have been slow to recognize this category of sainthood (although charity has always been part of the Christian path). Justice workers are sometimes unruly, even going so far as breaking the law in service to what they see as “a higher law” in imitation of Jesus. It was Pope Leo XIII in 1891 who began to articulate what has become the social teaching of the Catholic Church in his encyclical Rerum novarum which spoke of unfair labor practices. Do we see crusaders for justice as saints?

The dictionary has many definitions of sainthood – most of them somehow articulating the quality of holiness. Catholics look for miracles, especially healings and visions – and sometimes have clear evidence of how that has manifested in the lives of the canonized saints. A relatively new development is the growing consciousness of the “sainthood” of people who do not share our own religious beliefs and traditions. Who would argue against the sainthood of the Dalai Lama, for instance, especially if we have been privileged to be in his presence? Saint Paul is responsible for the fact that the title of saint appears in the Scriptures; he addresses everyone to whom he writes as saints! So what does that mean?

We may not all look like saints or fit any standard definition of what sainthood means, but maybe – with the virtue of hope in our pocket – we can continue on the way to God, doing our best to love as Jesus did, and as those people whose example we choose to follow have done, trusting that it is God’s measure we can achieve, becoming one in the great Communion of Saints that knows no human reckoning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saints in the Making

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All Saints Day, beatitudes, children of God, John, John the Evangelist, Matthew, psalm 24, saints, St. Paul, The Sermon on the Mount, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today, after a night of “trick-or-treat” where even animals were dressed in costume as someone other than themselves (See the NBC Evening News, 10/31), we celebrate the saints. St. Paul used to call those he encountered on his travels “saints” to impress on them, perhaps, what John the Evangelist meant when he wrote, “See what love God has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God. Yes, we are God’s children now…What we shall be later has not yet been revealed…when it is revealed we shall be like God…(1 JN 3:1-3). This all presupposes an understanding of the process of becoming mature, fully human persons – not perfect at the outset, but by the time we meet God, ready and able to look into God’s eyes and see ourselves as God sees us because we have done our best to become whole/holy. Psalm 24:6, the refrain for this morning, sings repeatedly, “This is the people that longs to see your face…” It seems to me that this is a good expression of the impetus for living life in the best way we can, which is, I believe, all that God asks.

It is true that history focuses on the “great saints” – many of whom have led lives of luxury or debauchery until some cataclysmic event or deep suffering has caused their conversion. Happily, today we are able to point as well to those whose steadiness and goodness all their lives have given us such example that we – if not in an official way – recognize them as saints. The Sermon on the Mount (MT 5:1-12) gives us this morning a “guidebook” of practices that lead to the fullness of life that we call sainthood. Jesus calls “Blessed” those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek and merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers, those who hunger and thirst and/or are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

Perhaps today is a day to reflect on what Jesus set out for us as a starter kit to saintliness, seeking in our lives examples of the “categories” listed above. And remember: God is on our side as we seek; “we are already God’s children!” And then we might look around – with God’s eyes – for other “saints in the making” and spend this day as a feast of gratitude. Happy All Saints Day!