Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

Happy Hallowmas Day! Today’s the Feast of All Saints when we celebrate the beauty and diversity of the members of Christ’s body, the great cloud of witnesses of the Church Triumphant that ever surrounds us in the communion of God’s great Love and that live and reign with him in the Deathless Kingdom of Love that even now is coming into the world.

Our reading from Hebrews this morning gives a rather impressive (and daunting!) list of some of the miraculous and valorous things the holy ones and heroes of the Hebrew Testament accomplished or endured by grace, and the church is flooded with stories of other holy ones who, by grace, fought or resisted dragons (both cultural and personal), performed miracles, and/or endured much.

But I think we misunderstand the glory of the saints, the glory and the beauty of holiness, if we understand it chiefly in terms of miraculous or exceptional acts of high renown. The glory of the heavenly hosts is not to be found in a list of great deeds, but in a life in which grace is embodied, a life shaped by and for love, a life in which love is clearly visible, a life that is love. In fact, it’s Love that has worked all the worthy accomplishments of the saints. It’s Love that is the saints’ crown and Love that is their glory.

And who can limit the scope and action of Love’s work? Surely if it’s in great deeds it’s also in the small. Indeed: the Love that moved Saint Nicholas to calm a storm (while bi-locating!) is the same Love that weeps with those who mourn in the tears of Saint Catherine of Sienna; the Love that engraved in gold the monogram of Christ onto the heart of Saint Ignatius is the Love that washed the dishes of a convent in the hands of Saint Therese of Lisieux; the Love that moved Saint Francis to preach to the doves is the same Love that moved Anglican Bishop Hugh Latimer to comfort his friend, Bishop Nicholas Ridley, as they approached the stakes on which they’d be burned (“Be of good cheer, Master Ridley,” he said, “…we shall this day light such a candle in England as I hope, by God’s grace, shall never be put out!”); the Love that inspired the visions of Saint Hildegard of Bingen and Saint Julian of Norwich is that same Love by which a parent tucks a sleepy child into bed.

Speaking of Mother Julian, she had a wonderful way of holding this reality of God’s love when she spoke of “the full gracious and homely” divinity of God. For her, God had courtly grace and royal majesty…but was close, familiar, too, the Divine Love fully at home everywhere and with everyone. And the saints share in that homeliness, becoming by Love’s indwelling living beacons of God’s own at-homeness with the people God loves…which is to say: everyone.

The glory of the saints, the glory of Love, is also your glory. You may not work a miracle today, but you can whisper a word of encouragement to someone who needs it now or may need it a week or a year from now. You can mourn with those who mourn. You can stand with those who stand for justice and peace. And you can know, when you do any of these things or anything else that Love may bid you do, Love is standing with you and in you, the grace of God is empowering you, and the communion of saints is surrounding you!

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+