RBWords - Volume 31 - Number 10: October 2018
Something to Think About
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT –
A few days after I send this edition of RBWORDS I will be traveling to New Orleans, LA, to preach a retreat for women at the Archdiocesan Retreat Center (former Cenacle Retreat). The title of the retreat is WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN! CAN I BE IN THAT NUMBER?. It begins on All Saints Day, so I felt that would be as good a title as any to give it. Two stories have come to my mind as I prepare for this event. The first concerns the old (at least to me) movie, THE PRIVATE WAR OF MAJOR BENSON, which starred Charleton Heston as an army man in trouble with his superiors who give him a last chance by appointing him drill master at a Catholic military boys school. The sister in charge is showing him around when he arrives and they pass by a large portrait of a stern-looking cleric. Heston asks, “Who is that?” Sister replies, “That is our founder. He was canonized recently!” Heston replies, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” The second story concerns a pastor who comes to talk to a class of first graders near All Saints Day to talk about saints. He asks the class, “How many of you want to become saints?” All but one child raises their hand. The pastor says to the child, “Don’t you want to become a saint?” The child responds, “NOOOO, Father!” The pastor says, “Why not?” The child answers, “Cuz they’re all dead!”
To become a saint, one does not have to be canonized or dead. The church does not “canonize” people who are alive on earth, but those saints are by no means “dead.” They and we are all members of the “communion of saints,” in which we profess our belief every Sunday in the Nicene or Apostles’ Creed! Although our church applies a “miracle test” to determine whether or not to canonize someone, it seems to me a better criterion is holiness of life rather than influence with God! Indeed, St. Paul, in Romans, refers to committed Christians as saints several times. We are in that number by baptism and when we take our relationship to God and neighbor seriously as a matter of faith and live it out in practice every day. IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
It Has Been Said
“It doesn’t have to be the blue iris,
It could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small
stones; just
pay attention, then
patch a few words together
and don’t try to make them elaborate,
this isn’t a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
PRAYING by Mary Oliver, from the collection, THIRST
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