What does it take to become
a Saint - the capital “S” type?
This past Wednesday in Bible
study we were considering Chapter 16 of the Gospel according to S. Matthew,
which includes Jesus’ well-known and oft-debated-among-marginal-Catholics
statement, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.”
If our Lord entrusted His
Church to S. Peter, then surely he must be a good example for us to study,
mustn’t he? And yet, five verses later,
granted not in the same episode, but certainly shortly thereafter, “Jesus
turned, and said unto Peter, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence
unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of
men’.”
Two chapters later, following
the Transfiguration, now soon to be on the way to Jerusalem for the last time,
we come to the Gospel passage appointed for the 22nd Sunday after
Trinity, which today is, though we chose to read the All Saints Propers
instead. Not to be concerned; the Gospel
passage for Trinity 22 is so well-known I suspect that each of us here could
complete the opening sentences, which begin, “Peter said unto Jesus, ‘Lord, how
oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?’ Jesus saith unto him, ‘I say not unto thee,
until seven times; but until…’”
S. Peter; a model for us to
study in terms of the capital “S” saints.
Not many days later, Peter
makes a bold promise that he would follow Jesus unto death, only to deny him
three times within a few hours of having made that promise.
S. Peter; interesting model
of a Saint.
We have heard it said often
enough that while salvation may happen in an instant, sanctification, the
process of becoming gradually more holy, takes a lifetime. S. Peter might appear to be a rather good
model after all.
Of all of the sermons that I
have preached here in the past couple of decades, only once have I been asked
to repeat one; and that was a sermon for All Saints. In it, I kept dangling a teaser, “It is
important for us to study the lives of Saints, as they can give us something
that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ cannot.”
Only at the end, did I reveal the resolution. “Saints, unlike our Lord, can give us the
example of sinners being made holy.” S.
Peter might appear to be an excellent example.
That teaser has been stated in many different ways over the centuries; I am certainly not the first to make the point. One of the more memorable variations is this by Jean-Baptiste Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, “The saints did not all begin well; but they all ended well.”
Frankly, that is much more encouraging I think than mine, as “the example of sinners being made holy” is somewhat distant in that it suggests that we might learn something if we are to study the lives of others; whereas, the Curé’s phrase is, I find, much more immediate in the sense that it suggests that becoming a Saint is beyond none of us. “The saints” just like all of us “did not all begin well.” Contemplating that, even in view of the example of someone like S. Peter, to whom our Lord entrusted the care of His Church, should be a primary source of encouragement for all of us. S. Peter, by the many recorded episodes in the pages of the Gospels, and even his little dust-up with S. Paul well after the Day of Pentecost, most certainly did not begin well. It might even be observed that not only didn’t he “begin” well; sometimes he didn’t “middle” very well either. And yet still, it bears mentioning that, for all of his faults, the early Church, as recorded by several episodes in the Acts of the Apostles, did consistently turn to Peter for guidance, ministry and his clearly Spirit-filled presence in the records of healings that occurred at his hands or even just in his presence.
Therefore, as we find ourselves in the octave of the feast when we are encouraged to rejoice in our fellowship not only with other believers, small “s” saints, but more particularly with all “those who in life and death have glorified thee - the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Mary the Mother of our Lord - capital “S” Saints, let us, each of us, ask ourselves whether we truly appreciate that each of us has the potential to become a Saint.
Here we must be careful, as this is one of those points along the lines of praying for humility, and then feeling rather proudly that we have achieved that goal. “Thank God I’m humble.” “Thank God that I am a Saint.”
It doesn’t quite work that way. Just as a truly humble person is unaware of the flowering of that particular virtue in his or her life - others however will see it in them - so too are those who become Saints equally unaware of their lives being lived in such a way that ultimately they will be counted worthy to be included in that distinguished list.
If not having begun well somehow concludes in their lives as having ended well, what change occurred? Without exception - a life tuned in to God, a life turned away from the profane distractions of the world, a life given to service of God and, through Him of service to their fellow men, without thought of praise or reward, a life of loving God with heart, soul, mind and strength, and neighbours above themselves.
Sounds like a tall order, but as the Curé observed, not beyond any of us. However, it is most definitely not something that is going to occur overnight. Granted, there have been a few truly shining examples throughout Christian history of those who just seemed naturally from the outset to be turned so fully towards God that, to use the colloquial expression, “they made it look easy.” Quite likely none of them would agree; in spite of the outward appearance to us, those who are so blessed usually have found their path to be one of great struggles.
For the rest of us, there is no denying that it will be a struggle too: to turn away from worldly pleasures and distractions - which is not an option, rather a must; to seek constantly God’s will; to train our wills to be in concord with His; to deny self, take up our crosses and follow Him; to acknowledge that only by His grace and through the indwelling of the Spirit of the Risen Lord may we change ever so gradually, and usually quite unconsciously, from sinner to Saint.
As mentioned, we should not assume that any of this is going to happen in an instant. The common thread, the unavoidable constant for us to end well, is a life of prayer, as it is only in prayer that we turn from self toward God. And the sort of prayer that might lead us away from self and towards God is not just participation in the Holy Eucharist and praying the daily offices. Which is not to minimize those services of the Church. They are the bedrock, the foundation of our being participating, functioning members of the Body of Christ, the Church; however, when we acknowledge that they are most properly viewed as our collective participation in the prayers of the entire Church, rather than an exercise in edification to help us move along the path of personal sanctification, we must look beyond those corporate services to a form of prayer that is entirely individual. Such prayer is intensely personal; hints being given us in the pages of Scripture where Jesus would go off to be alone so that He might pray without distractions of any sort; St. Paul’s exhortation to “pray without ceasing” and so on.
Most certainly the Eucharist and the lessons from the daily office, using the readings from Scripture as sources, can be the springboard to this additional personal prayer. At their most basic level, and reviewed here in a highly condensed and far too brief manner, mental prayer, as these exercises in personal prayer are often called, are forms of quietly meditating on passages of Scripture, or the virtues of Christ; and by devout reflection to realize a deepening spiritual insight, stimulating the will and affections. Many, but not all souls, may then move to a form of contemplation where words are no longer consciously formed; the soul being acted directly upon by grace.
Medieval
mystics also formulated three stages of development that accompany such prayer:
the Purgative, Illuminative and Unitive ways.
In the first, the
There is no hard and fast dividing line between these stages; neither is there any guarantee that a soul that has progressed from stage to stage, or who has graduated from meditative to contemplative will be accounted as a capital “S” Saint. After all, the list of Saints that has been formulated throughout the history of the Church is a man-made list. Having said that, it is true that a life of genuine holiness, with the attendant virtues that will be so very obvious to those around, sticks out like a sore thumb. And, of course, it is Christ-like virtues, mirrored in the lives of such people, that makes them examples. Such a life is a “burning and a shining light” for all to see; thus, there are few indeed who have achieved such holiness who have not been specially remembered by the Church.
And yet, as we know, there are very few indeed from any given generation in the Church who are so included in that list. Recalling the Curé’s encouraging suggestion that “we may all end well” does that mean that the 99 percent plus of all other Christians, among whom we include ourselves, are miserable failures? Hardly. So far as we understand the hereafter, there are no second-class citizens in heaven. Fr. David’s biddings on the first Mass of All Saints this past week reminded us that the word saint, indeed the way we understand the word in the Creed, originally meant the entire fellowship of believers. All those who have live faithful lives in obscurity, all those who have been faithful to Christ, all those who have loved God and their fellow men through Him will not be forsaken. Just as we are members of one Body here on earth, and every one members one of another, we believe that that communion does not cease at the boundary of this mortal coil, and that our fellowship includes the Church Expectant and Triumphant; therefore in the hereafter we are and will be similarly united, both to S. Peter, and, to Mrs. Jones who lived next door. All saints.
ANNUNCIATION OTTAWA 2007 +CR