With Friends Like This
The Solemnity of All Saints. Fr Samuel Burke finds great hope in the friendship of the saints.
All Saints: the short word ‘all’ in the title of today’s Solemnity invokes several connotations, I think. For starters, it instantly captures something of the vast number of the Lord’s holy ones, ‘the great multitude’ that John describes in his celestial vision from our First Reading. ‘All’ of them share a holiness that is held up to us by the Church as an example of heroic virtue.
Beyond what they share, we might naturally wonder what might be said of their striking differences, coming ‘from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages’? Consider that amidst the ranks of Saints are Kings and Queens as well as paupers, from the likes of St Edmund the Confessor, St Margaret of Scotland, and St Louis of France to St Joseph Benedict Labre or the Venerable Margaret Sinclair. There are great intellectuals like St Albert the Great or St John Henry Newman but also illiterates such as St Bernadette Soubris and very unacademic Saints like the recently canonised St Pier-Giorgio Frassati.
Pick almost any human characteristic and examples of saintly diversity abound. Glance at a copy of Butler’s Lives of The Saints or even look at one written for children; survey the array of statues in a mediaeval Cathedral; look at the various dedications of churches as you pass. Before long the realisation hits home that heaven brims with saints from all conceivable walks of life, men and women possessed of every imaginable talent, and — in what makes them especially relatable — they were challenged with the gamut of perils, pains and obstacles that humanity might face. Collectively, they make for an improbable roll call and therein lies the poetic beauty of the feast we celebrate.
Yet it isn’t just about the names we know and love. All extends to include those who — while not officially recognised by the Church — are counted among the saints, whose faith and holiness may have been largely hidden but which we might have been privileged to glimpse but was known to the Lord and now shines in his eternal kingdom. Just think of all the anonymous Saints.
The Italian spiritual writer Mgr Luigi Giussani once asked, in a book about the Christian life in which the question also forms the title of the work, ‘Is it possible to live this way?’ It’s a question we may well find ourselves asking from time to time. Almost in chorus, in their very diversity, the Saints provide a symphonic ‘yes’ in reply. Their stories remind us others have ‘been there’ many years before us, and their example demonstrates concretely that following Jesus is not only possible but sanctifying and, by God’s grace, ultimately redemptive. When we spend time looking at the lives of the Saints, we learn something not only of their own biography but reveal something about ourselves, and about the Lord’s work in our lives.
It works like this, according to St. Thomas Aquinas: divine grace doesn’t destroy nature but perfects it. In other words, God works through the gifts he has given us. Saints are not superhuman but, in a sense, more fully human. In the words of the Gospel, they are ‘blessed’. This is not beyond our reach. For if we too share the life of Christ — if we are poor, if we mourn, if we are persecuted for His sake and so on — we may share not only his earthly mission but his heavenly destiny. Jesus promises no less, himself, ‘Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.’
When we pray we always go to Jesus but sometimes we ask our friends — the Saints — to join, to borrow one of Cardinal Dolan’s lines. Asking those friends in heaven to join our prayer is not worship of the Saints but calling upon their intercession, their help. When he was dying St Dominic told the brethren ‘Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after death, and I shall help you more effectively than during my life’. Well, I take him at his word, that his intercession before the Holy Trinity in heaven contributes immeasurably to the work of the Order of Preachers. His prayers help me in my vocation each day. St Dominic stands as a friend in heaven, an ally before the Lord, if you will. And, aptly enough for Dominicans, with a whole white-robed army besides.
Readings: Apocalypse 7:2-4,9-14 | 1 John 3:1-3 | Matthew 5:1-12a
