On Sainthood
Wow. This is not what I thought would completely take over my mind today. But a train (of thought) left one city headed north at 25 miles per hour, and another train left another city headed east at 30 miles per hour, and they both arrived at the feast of William Porcher Dubose yesterday and now this is all I can think about this morning. So I’m going to write a few thoughts down.
This is a draft. People will point things out that they disagree with. Some of them I will not go along with, and they will strengthen my resolve. Others will point out things I’ve overlooked and I’ll change my thoughts accordingly. So I’ll probably take this down eventually and replace it with something that reflects my evolved thinking. But I need to set some thoughts down now to help sort out what I believe.
What are saints, and what is the role of the communion of saints in the life of the church?
In my understanding, we are now alive. We are an embodied soul, an ensouled body. This unified combination of body and soul is who we are whilst we inhabit the earth. But at some point, we die, and our bodies and souls are separated. Our bodies are laid to rest, whether in the earth, or at sea, or to the elements. Our souls go on without our bodies to the next stage, where there are three possibilities. If we are ready for the Kingdom of Heaven, if we have aligned our will to the will of God so that we delight in God’s will and walk in God’s ways, then our souls will be at rest in the presence of God awaiting the resurrection of the dead. If we have not aligned our will to the will of God but we desire to do so, then after we die, our souls will be in a time of growth and reconditioning under God’s guidance to transform us into people of the Kingdom of Heaven in preparation for the resurrection of the dead. If we have not aligned our will to the will of God and we resist doing so, then after we die our souls are apart from God and in torment until such a time that we might open ourselves to God’s efforts at reconciliation and rehabilitation. One might name these three possible states whist the body is separated from the soul: the first might be called heavenly rest, the second, purgatory (or heavenly growth), and the third, hell.
At the final judgment at the end of time, bodies are brought back to life and reunited with souls, and the reunified whole person, body and soul, having been prepared by rest, growth, or anguish (or perhaps some combination thereof), is then either welcomed to the reign of God, where those who live according to God’s vision for abundant life join in the perpetual feast in the new earth, ruled from the new heaven, while should any continue to reject living God’s abundant life, they would be cast into the outer darkness of either suffering or annihilation apart from the presence of God. I pray that no one come to that fate, and suspect that God’s desire for apocatastasis is stronger than any of our stubbornness in rejecting God, but obviously I cannot know that.
The saints, as I understand it, are those who are now in the nearer presence of God.
We thank God for the examples they have given us as to how we might live. We hope their example might inspire us to live our lives in a way that God might sanctify us also as we live. And because they are our companions in faith and are in the nearer presence of God, we ask for their prayers, just as we do with our companions in faith who are in this life with us.
Traditionally, one function of the communion of saints in the life of the church was that we, the church on earth, called upon the members of the church in the nearer presence of God to pray for us. This practice lamentably encountered resistance during the reformation. If people invoke the prayers of the saints instead of praying to God directly, then the practice of invoking the prayers of the saints is regrettable, because it discourages direct prayer. But if the practice of invoking the prayers of the saints is coupled with direct prayer, I would argue it is a good thing, and no different than asking people on earth to pray for us. The saints do not mediate between us and God; they intercede on our behalf, as we do on theirs if they are still growing, and as we do for one another on earth. St. Paul instructs us to pray without ceasing, and when one of our prayers is silent, we can hope that others of us are picking up the prayer where the first left off. The reformation’s encouragement of direct prayer is laudable, but deprecating the practice of invoking the prayers of the saints is a baby thrown out with the bathwater of an attitude of our unworthiness for direct prayer, something indeed well discarded. We should pray to God. We should pray for one another. And we should ask one another to pray for us. That one another should include the whole church, including those who have died.
The present absence of officially sanctioned communal invocation of the prayers of the communion of saints in the liturgies of the Episcopal Church is, in my mind, the single biggest defect in our mostly laudable liturgical practice.
When I say we should invoke the prayers of the whole church, including those who live and those have died, I really do mean the whole church. I specifically include those who are undergoing heavenly growth, the so-called “Church Penitent,” or the souls who might be said to be in purgatory. I would argue that both souls in heavenly rest and souls undergoing heavenly growth are in the presence of God, and thus could pray for us. Those who are still growing in God’s love until they see God as God is can benefit from our prayers for them also, while the souls at rest already have grown to the point where they see the fullness of God, and thus need no more prayers on their behalf. In fact, the process of praying for us could help the growth of the souls who are growing, just like we can grow in grace by praying for others. I would argue that only the souls who reject growth in God are in no position to pray for us, having cut themselves off from God.
So when it comes to invoking the prayers of the saints, I suspect that both those who have attained holiness and those who still aspire to holiness are in a position to pray for us.
Now a second function of the saints in the life of the church is as examples of Godly life. Like Wenceslas’s page, we find it easier to trudge through the snow of life when we have footprints to walk in. Certain individuals have lived in specific ways that might inspire us to copy portions of their life that might help bring us closer to God. These examples of conversion, faith, heroic virtue, and Godly life can be both a template and a motivation for how we live our own lives. The lives of the saints are worth studying so they can be a template and motivation for us.
What are feast days? What are ferial days and why do they matter?
Feast days are days that we rejoice and give thanks for a gift God gave us. We mark feast days by doing special things we do not do on ordinary days. Eating special food can be an example. The most distinguishing mark of a feast day in the Church is the celebration of Holy Eucharist, which is our great thanksgiving to God for the blessings we have received and a foretaste of the heavenly feast we hope to join in at the resurrection.
Ferial days, on the other hand, are “normal” days, days not marked by feasting. In this world, we are prone to viewing things through a lens of duality: the sacred is only sacred in contrast with the profane. The holy is only holy in contrast with the unholy. The good is only good in contrast with the bad. The people of God are only people of God in contrast with the people who are not of God. In the Kingdom to come, the feast is ongoing. In the Kingdom to come, all who are there are holy. The idea that feasts cannot exist without the ferial is one that will not hold eventually, but in this life, we certainly gain a deeper understanding of the feast through fasting, and in this broken world, days which are not feast days seem appropriate as we grow toward the eternal heavenly banquet.
As long as we are removed from the fullness of the heavenly feast, it seems meet and right that our calendar should be marked by days that are not feast days in addition to the feast days. So it seems to me that as we select from the wide array of saints whose feasts we could celebrate, it seems wise that there be some days to which we do not assign feasts.
What is the role of feast days of saints in the life of the church? What feast days should we celebrate?
It seems to me that there are three roles of the feast days of saints in the life of the church. First, we give thanks to God for the example and witness of a particular saint. Second, we examine how the life of the saint we celebrate might be template or motivation for our own, and pray that we too might grow in holiness. Third, and this is where the Episcopal Church drops the ball, we pray that the saint in question might pray for us.
Now we can, and perhaps should, do all three of these things any day, without it being the particular feast day of a particular saint. But the calendar gives us a way to make anamnestically present the template and motivation from the past that we might hope would shape our lives today.
If at the most basic level, saints are those who are more directly in God’s presence than we are here on earth, then it would seem that anyone who is both dead and not in a state of rejecting God is a saint. It does not follow from there, though, that all such people would be equally beneficial for the church to celebrate their feast days. It seems to me that the decision to celebrate a saint’s feast day should be related to first, the intensity of our desire to give thanks to God for providing the example and work of the saint in question; second, the likelihood that anamnestically contemplating the life and work of the saint in question would guide and inspire people to holiness; and third, the extent to which we long for the particular intercession of that saint’s prayers. Complicating this is the question of whether there are aspects of a person’s life that are *not* the footsteps in which we should be walking, or whether aspects of a person’s story might discourage rather than excite holiness in the lives of those who hear it. The decision about whether celebrating a particular saint’s feast would be spiritually beneficial for a particular congregation here on earth is, of course, in no way a judgment of the sanctity of the person in question; our decision to celebrate the feast of a saint surely cannot change the fact of whether that soul is in God’s presence.
