The Gray Monk

TEWKESBURY ABBEY
ALL SAINTS SOLEMN EVENSONG
3RD November 2002

+In the name of God,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Amen

"They lost their tempers, got hungry, scolded God, were egotistical or testy or impatient by their turns, made mistakes and regretted them. Still they went on doggedly blundering their way toward heaven. And they won sanctity partly by willing to be saints, not only because they encountered no temptation to be less."

So wrote Phyllis McGinley in the introduction to a treatise on the most remarkable saints and divines in the Christian calendar. In seeking to define sainthood we have to be very careful not to be too pedantic in our choice of words or characteristics. Even the most holy of the Christian Saints could be incredibly unsaintly if you really look closely at his or her life under the sort of microscope that would today be brought to bear. Indeed, can we, in this day and age, exclude all the many very saintly people of other Faiths?

If we apply just one measure of sainthood, suffering for ones Faith, we find we must include the Dalai Lama, some Muslim clerics who suffered under the late Shah and a range of Buddhist and Hindu adherents who have been martyred by regimes such as the Pol Pot government of Cambodia. After all, the term, saint, means only some one set apart for God. Here in our own Abbey we commemorate St John the Baptist with a chapel shared with St Catherine and few of us recall that St John died before Christ and, what is more, would have considered himself first and last a Jew.

Another traditional measure of sainthood is martyrdom, dying in the defence of others, for something one believes in is something commended in the Gospel "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for another". That too could be interpreted in a manner which would open the ranks to of sainthood to all religions and to those of no particular faith at all. I was reminded of this just this week when we marked the death of a colleague in our traditional way at the Fire Service College and a passage from St John's gospel was read which included just those words. I cannot vouch for my dead colleagues faith or indeed his religion - I do know he died making sure that no one else was at risk from the fire in that building. Does this qualify him as a saint? Such a measure would open the question of the million or so members of the Iraqi and Iranian Christians forced into serving in suicide battalions – and perhaps it should!

Mankind, it is said, is incurably religious, captive to an inescapable predicament that is integral to the soul. It follows therefore, that any individual who demonstrates by word, action or simply their manner of dealing with the world around them, a greater spiritual depth or presence, strikes us as a person set apart by God. St Paul reminds us in his letter to the Hebrews that such individuals had existed throughout Jewish history and populate the pages of the Old Testament. Yet he goes on to say that it is in Christ alone that they and we can receive the full grace promised to us. Describing the saints of old as "that great cloud of witnesses" he argues that we must needs strive to emulate them and run the race with our eyes fixed on Jesus until we can join the saints in paradise. But, this is challenged by the “official” view – to be a Saint at least three miracles must be attributed to you – preferably after death!

Paul's vision of the saints is an inclusive one. To Paul every person who turns to Christ in love, renouncing sin and everything about the world that hinders our spiritual growth, is a saint. Can it be as simple as this? I think it can. All it requires is commitment – to commit oneself to God, for God. To serve Him and to accept whatever the world may throw at us.

But, is this our usual image of a saint?

The examples of the saints we have before us include not a few who must have been pretty nearly impossible to live with. Paul, by all accounts, could be pretty abrasive and so could James the Great and several others. Living with St John the Divine must be many peoples nightmare and even some of the later saints would have been good candidates for pain in the neck of the year awards. For the medieval Church and even for the Reformation Churches, it seemed almost de rigueur for a saint to have been impossibly pious and totally otherworldly. A severe expression, a hair shirt, incredible hardship and a longsuffering attitude of self-denial were the essentials of piety and sainthood. I for one would not be comfortable having either my faith or my possible sainthood measured against some of them.

But is this a true reflection of a saint?

Perhaps not, for, as a closer look at Paul and others reassures us, they were human first and foremost. What set them apart was their spiritual growth so that they, in a darkening world, shone out like beacons for others to see and emulate. We too are human and therefore subject to human limitation. We are incurably religious, even the atheist needs great faith to believe in nothing!

We, as Christians, must strive to live as Christ has directed through the Gospels and through the example of those whom we have labelled Saint. We must strive to grow in faith and spirit as they grew in faith and spirit and to show this growth to the world outside. I am sure that you have also encountered people whose faith has made an impact on your life or even just upon your awareness. There are those in this congregation who have just such a faith and those who know and visit them always remark on how they went to give comfort and left feeling comforted. That is the function of the saint and we are all saints in the making.

I was once told that there were no more saints in the world, I refute that statement and I hold before you tonight Mother Theresa, Archbishop Luwum of Uganda, and all those Christians East of Suez still persecuted for their faith and yourselves. We are all members of the body of Christ, we share in one bread at the altar and we share one faith in Him. We are charged to do his works and to bring his message to the world. Each of us has some gift of the spirit to be used in that task and each of us has the mark of sainthood upon us. To some it is given to be marked and remembered by the whole church, to some to be known only by their own congregation, and some are known only to God. But all are saints.

A definition of a saint, which I prefer, is one who hears God's call and accepts the challenge. All those we mark as Saints were human, like us they lost their tempers, got hungry, were disillusioned and depressed, but through faith they rose above such difficulties and we should remember this and accept our own call to follow them to Christ. I was reminded recently that not all the great saints had a particularly auspicious start. Patrick of Ireland in particular seems to have been a regular tearaway and Augustine of Hippo was also reputed to be a man of the world. Nor were they alone, yet God made these men and women his instruments in this life and set them apart for our example.

Grant to me the steadfastness of faith of Blessed Patrick,
The wisdom of Benedict,
The justice of Augustine,
The compassion of Bridget and
The courage of the Apostles and martyrs. Amen