Sunday November 03rd we found ourselves in a week inhabiting the world between life, death and remembering. This blog posting was taken from a sermon I gave commemorating All Saints Day on the Sunday rather than the previous Friday. The readings used in the service were Psalm 24:1-6, Wisdom 3: 1-9 and Revelations 21:1-6.
Last Thursday (October 31st) we had Halloween or All Hallows Eve, the day when the souls of the dead are said to return to earth ahead of the festival of Samhaim which occurs on November 01st, the name given by the pagan Celts to mark the end of summer and the beginning of the Celtic New Year. Yes, Halloween was an Irish invention, but the Americans took it downmarket!
Celtic pagan rituals have played a major role in the bringing of Christianity to the Celtic peoples beginning as it did in Ireland. Those early missionaries decided rather than impose their own forms of worship on those they wished to convert, instead adapted where possible their customs and institutions into Christian practice, thereby combining the old forms of spiritual worship represented by nature and new forms based on the teachings of Christ.
Celtic veneration of holy spaces, and objects like springs and stones were adapted into Christian worship and places associated with Celtic Gods like St Brigid – whose feast day on February 01st is now a bank holiday in Ireland – became part of the stories of Celtic saints often considered to be the re-workings of pagan myths and legends. The Celtic understanding of life and being was that everything is one. There is no separation between the physical and spiritual, sacred and secular; Our mind, body and soul are all part of one body along with our spirit.
Celtic Christianity has produced many well-known saints including two patron saints of these isles, David and Patrick. St Petroc, St Tudy, St Endelion, who brought Christianity to Cornwall. St Columba who founded the monastery at Iona whose legacy lives on today.
St Columbanus, who epitomised the Celtic love of nature and closeness to its rhythms and who is credited with saying, “If you want to know the Creator, you must first know his creation.” Isn’t it a pity that we in our globalised, environment-destroying, consumerist world of today seem to have forgotten that very simple yet profound statement?
No mention of the Celtic saints would be complete without mentioning St Brendan the Navigator. Reputed to have reached America almost 1,000 years before Columbus, and which led to Oscar Wilde’s famous observation about how they had always previously managed to cover it up. Given what they did with Halloween, if only they could have kept it covered up!!
One of the enduring legacies of the pagan influence on Celtic Christianity came in 844 CE when Pope Gregory moved the commemoration of the martyred saints from May 13th to November 01st as the original Celtic festival continued to be more popular.
By moving the date, it was intended to divert attention away from the pagan festival of Samhaim and toward veneration of the saints on Nov 01st and of all our departed souls on Nov 02nd. In recent decades Celtic spirituality as well as Celtic Christianity has become popular again with many new people attracted to its simple form of worship and community living much of which was modelled on the early Church.
If there is one thing the events of recent years has taught us, is that it has given us is a chance to re-assess how we live our lives and to prioritise the important things in life. Going back to some form of basic living is perhaps an opportunity not to be wasted.
Of course, not every Celtic Christian was saintly in their lifetimes, some like St Columba had been involved in violent confrontations in their youth resulting in many deaths. As Oscar Wilde also observed, “Every saint has a past, therefore every sinner has a future”.
Although primarily a Catholic tradition, protestant churches often utilise the names of those canonised mainly the apostles and early disciples. As we know from our bible studies many of these men and women had like all human beings serious character flaws in their make-up, yet when the time came, declared their faith and love in God and Jesus Christ even in some cases up to the point of death.
In recent times sainthood has been conferred on those for whom miracles have been attributed for good. St Bernadette of Lourdes immediately springs to mind and in recent decades names such as Fr Maximillian Kolbe, who took the place of a condemned prisoner at Auschwitz thus sacrificing himself, Pope John 23rd, Pope John Paul 2nd, Mother Teresa, John Henry Newman and Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated while presiding at Holy Communion in El Salvador in 1980.
In our bible readings for today, we can see parallels with the lives of those venerated in the words of holy scripture. In psalm 24 with its recognition that the earth is the Lord’s, for he has founded everything in it. Clear and simple, emphasising where the ultimate power on earth lies. But it also asks who shall ascend to the hill, to the mountain top, answer, only those with cleans hands and pure hearts who do not allow themselves to become false and deceitful. God will reward them for their faith, will vindicate them and bless them. Like all those we regard as saintly.
In the Wisdom of Solomon, it talks about the destiny of the righteous and how no torment will ever touch them. We know that for those martyred for their faith did undergo physical torment, were vilified and abused and seen as wasting their lives. Oscar Romero and Maximillian Kolbe were two such examples.
Romero knew the risks of being in opposition to the military juntas overseeing the brutal repression of the Salvadorian people. Kolbe determined to offer his life to save another prisoner even though he knew it meant a certain and likely horrible death. As it says in verses 4 – 6, although in the sight of others they were punished, their hope is full of immortality, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself. By their sacrifice they left behind a legacy which provided hope to those they served.
El Salvador no longer has a military junta. The prisoner who was saved by Kolbe’s sacrifice survived the war and was present in Rome in 1982, when the polish friar Maximillian Kolbe was canonised by a polish pope. God tested them both by giving them the courage and gravitas to speak out and oppose injustice and the brutal treatment of the poor and defenceless.
In verse 7 Solomon declares, “such people will shine forth creating sparks through the stubble”, in other words, these will be seen and recognised, as is so often the case in those we choose to remember. Their rule is not necessarily an earthly rule, but a rule which comes from the influence they exert, usually long after they have died.
It is sad in a way that we do not make more of this kind of text. Vs 9 was in many ways a rallying cry to the faithful departed whether martyred or not. Those who trust in him will understand truth, the truth of God’s holy word. And the faithful will abide with him in love, because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones, and he watches over his elect.
Because of the grace freely given we can abide with God in love knowing he watches over us at all times. This is the essence of our faith and the faith shown by those called to sainthood.
Our final reading from the book of Revelation isn’t necessarily as apocalyptic as it sounds. It is a statement of God’s victory over evil. Here the writer John, reveals what was told to him by God through an angel and in Ch 21 writes there will be a new heaven and a new earth, for the old one has passed away. Centuries earlier, God (through the prophet Isaiah) assured the Jewish exiles, “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
In that Isaian context, God was promising the Jewish exiles that he would restore their great city, Jerusalem, which had been destroyed much earlier. This was God’s promise that the exiles would be able to return to their home—that they would be able to live once again in their great city. The former things—their exile in Babylonia—would fade into distant memory so that they might enjoy their new freedom.
Now John uses that same language to speak of the heavenly city—the New Jerusalem—the new home for the faithful. John has seen it and describes it to reassure faithful Christians who have endured adversity—people who need to hear that God will make things right. This remains the case today.
Death will be defeated and there will be no more tears. All things will be new thus fulfilling not only ancient scriptures, but what Jesus told us himself about the coming of God’s Kingdom and how we should seek and be ready for it on the final day.
We all shed tears now and then, particularly when we lose a loved one. But in the end God’s ultimate victory will ensure no more crying and pain. We mourn for those who die, that is to be expected but there will be no more death. There will be no more grief or tears or pain, because the causes of those things will no longer exist.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, taken from the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. This is God revealing what is essentially his truth.
From the first reading in psalm 24, the earth is the Lords, to Solomon declaring how the souls of the righteous are in God’s hands to the final revelation in John, I am the alpha and the omega, we see how it is God through Jesus, who determines the ultimate path of humanity.
Those we venerate as saints understood this truth only too well, we however still seem to struggle to fully accept it at times.
We must really learn to do better.