RBWords - Volume 32 - Number 10: October 2019
Something to Think About
I am grateful that that feast of All Saints is near because it gives me something to think about besides politics and the pandemic! Two stories will help me to shape my reflection. The first is about a pastor who visits a 3rd grade class at the parish school around this time. He asks the class: “Who wants to become a saint?” All hands go up except one child. The pastor asks the child, “Don’t you want to become a saint?” The child vigorously shakes its head. The pastor asks, “Why not?” The child answers, “Cuz they’re all dead!” The second story comes from the movie, THE PRIVATE WAR OF MAJOR BENSON in which Charlton Heston plays the role of an army officer who has gotten in trouble with superiors who give him a last chance by sending him as a military instructor at a Catholic private military academy run by some sisters. At the beginning of the movie the mother superior is giving him a tour of the school and Heston spots a life-sized painting of a very stern-looking cleric and asks, “Who is that?” The sister says, “Oh, that’s our holy founder! He was canonized last year!” Heston replies, “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
One does not have to be dead or canonized (even if, officially, the former is a condition for the latter) to become a saint. The uncanonized saints far outnumber, thankfully, the canonized ones! One does not even need to be canonized to become a member of the “communion of saints!” Baptism is the ordinary requirement, along with a consistent witness of faith that reflects a deep love of God and neighbor. We are all called to this standard by baptism, but meet it in varying degrees! We can pick one or more (official or unofficial) saint(s) to serve as a heroic example for our own lives. The celebration of the Feast of All Saints can remind us to be grateful for their witness and be ever more motivated to imitate them. IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
It Has Been Said
As we get to know them in all their variousness, we gradually learn that there is no such thing as a saintly type. What is called the saintly type is often an objectionable and showy form of pietistic character. But there is a steady sanctification of every sort of character once it has been given to God and died to self. Indeed the idea of the Communion of Saints as a society of persons all wearing the same patterned white robe, stiffened with the same starch, is a very depressing one. Their variousness, like our own, is the variousness of real life, but all are irradiated with love and joy and peace. All have killed the poison of self interest and know what it is to irradiate that which we already have and are with the Divine Love, not turn away from it and seek some different and perhaps imaginary type of perfection.
From THE WAYS OF THE SPIRIT by Evelyn Underhill