All Saints' Day is a national holiday in Poland. Families get together to visit the graves of family members. At the graves they light candles and pray.
The effect of the lit candles on the gravestones in the dark evening is striking, as you can see in the photo above. It may seem to some a depressing, somber event. For those of us who hope in the resurrection it is not. Furthermore, it is a time to meet family members, many of whom live far away and make a special trip for this occasion, and recollect past times and departed loved ones.
What is a Saint?
A saint is primarily someone who has lived a life of heroic virtue and now enjoys the beatific vision of God our Father in heaven. In other words, a saint is someone who died in the friendship of Jesus Christ and now spends eternity in heaven.
In the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church there are canonized saints. Those are individuals who the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has formally recognized as having died in love with Jesus and who are now in heaven. The Church recognizes that the formally canonized saints do not include all the saints in heaven. There are many unknown saints in heaven. I will never have my picture on a stained glass window, but I am called to be a saint (see Leviticus 11:44).
We can think of the canonized saints as the Church's Hall of Fame. Their lives are meant to be models for our encouragement. The saints struggled with the same things we do. Some had short tempers. Some struggled with gluttony. Some with lust. Some had debilitating physical ailments. But each of them gave their life over completely to Jesus Christ. Some sooner, some later, but all in the end submitted their wills to the will of God.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven . . .
All Souls' Day and Purgatory
November 2nd is All Souls' Day. Briefly, this celebration is associated with the doctrine that the souls of the faithful who at death were not without stain due to venial sins and from attachment to mortal sins cannot immediately attain the beatific vision in heaven (nothing unclean can enter heaven, Revelations 21:27). We may assist them through prayer and the sacrifice of the Mass. Their full sanctification is carried out posthumously in Purgatory.
Purgatory is a topic for a posting of its own, but here are some scriptural references used to support the doctrine: Luke 12:59; Matthew 12:32; 1 Corinthians 3:13-15; Colossians 1:24; 1 Peter 3:19. There's also 2 Maccabees 12:43-46 but Protestants don't include this book in the Old Testament.
My patron saints
A patron saint is someone who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family or person. Just as our family and friends on earth can pray for us, so can our family in heaven (see Revelation 5:8 and 8:3-4). For those of us with a Christian name like Mark, Philip, Mary, Elizabeth, etc., we could chose that saint as our patron. There is no canonized saint with the name Randall. There is a Saint Kevin (my second name), but I have chosen two other saints as my patrons.
Saint Joseph is referred to as the "silent saint." Scripture records no spoken words of his. Rather than speaking, Joseph is portrayed as acting on the word of God. When he decided to quietly divorce Mary after discovering she was with child when they'd had no physical relations, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and explained what was happening and what Joseph must do. Upon waking up, Joseph did as he was commanded. Twice more the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, first commanding him to take Mary and Jesus into Egypt to flee from the murderous King Herod, and second commanding him to return the family to Israel after Herod's death. Again, Joseph immediately obeyed. (See Matthew's Gospel, chapters 1 - 2 for these examples)
I am a husband and father of two children. Although they are my biological children, I understand that they are really God's. My duty is to protect them, provide for them, instruct them and love them and to love, honor and serve my wife, just as Joseph did for Jesus and Mary. For this reason and for his unfailing obedience to God, Saint Joseph if one of my patron saints.
Saint Joan of Arc (died 1431) is my other patron saint. She was an illiterate peasant girl who at the age of 12 began to see visions of Saints Michael, Catherine and Margaret, who instructed her to drive the occupying English from France. The story of Joan's struggle to convince the French authorities that her mission was legitimate, her leadership of the French army to a string of miraculous victories, her amazing verbal defense alone against a stacked court of highly learned men after her capture and finally her courage in the face of execution are an inspiration to me. According to witnesses, Joan's final words as she burned at the stake were, "Jesus! My Jesus!" I can't help but believe that at that very same moment she cried those words as she ran into the arms of her beloved Jesus in heaven.
Sain Joan's humility, obedience to the voice of God and her courage are why she is one of my patron saints.
I wrote the following Prayer to Saint Joan of Arc:
To have the humble heart of a shepherdess,
Content to sleep upon the dewy sod;
The soldier's steely stare, the lion's nerve;
To keep the night watch through and never nod;
To keep the flame of faith in purity
And love and never break beneath the rod;
O purest lily, white as heaven's Lamb,
Saint Joan pray for us to the Lord our God.
Saint Joan enters Orleans in triumph.
No comments:
Post a Comment