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Sisters and brothers. Today, we have the opportunity to talk about the Communion of Saints.
In the letter to the Hebrews we are told there is a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. The cloud of witnesses is indeed the Communion of Saints.
When we think and pray the Creed, the Apostles Creed, we talk about believing in the Communion of Saints. That is, we are connected to those who are holy in their lives. They are those who are on the way, those who have not fully enjoyed the inheritance from Christ, that is, those of us who are baptized and living and walking and continuing to fall and be reconciled and continue to live as holy life we can.
There are those who have gone before us in death, who are in purgatory, and who are working through the process of entering fully into the inheritance of eternal life. Then there are those saints who were already received into heaven, many of those who have, whose names are not known to us, many of those whose names are known to us because they have gone through the process of canonization or in the early days of the Church, they were acclaimed saints by the communities that surrounded them the Church on Earth, the Church in Purgatory, the Church in Heaven, the Communion of Saints united to us so that we have a cloud of witnesses to encourage us and to support us, to pray for us, and to lead and guide us, the saints, when we, talk about them in those ways, we understand saints as helpers, saints as intercessors.
One of the questions people often have is, why do we pray to saints? Why do we need this cloud of witnesses around us? And indeed, we don't need them in the sense of Christ watching over us, God loves us with the fullness of the love of the Trinity. And certainly is supportive of us. But oftentimes, in our lives, we reach out to friends and say a good word for me. Or would you lend me a hand? It's the same thing that we're asking those who, because every good that a saint offers us isn't their good, it's the good of God that flows through them. So when we venerate saints, we're not adoring them as having particular powers or superpowers. What we know is because of their closeness to Christ, the power of God flows through them and good works for us.
Our own St. Theresa of Lisieux, when she died, said that she wishes and look forward to the day of when she could be in heaven sharing roses with us. And roses were for her the favors of God for us. Ever since Saint Theresa was canonized in 1925, people have looked and reflected in their lives and said, there's been a rose here and a rose there. Those roses, while they may have been offered and prayed for and shared with us by the intention of Saint Theresa, we know those roses were acts of love from God Himself.
When we think about saints in history, there have been all kinds of saints, very often priest bishops, occasional deacons, monks and nuns, but also tremendous numbers of laypeople.
One of the great gifts to the Church in the papacy of Saint John Paul the Second was how many people he canonized and brought into the universal practice of the Church for us to venerate, pray, and ask for their intercession. Many of whom were laymen and women.
In our own Church here at Saint Theresa, we have not only the witness of Saint Theresa but her parents, the laymen, Louis Martin and his wife, Zelie. So Louis and Zelie, two great lay saints who are sainted as a couple, a great witness, again, a cloud of witnesses of what a faithful marriage is. And they lived a marriage that had the struggles of poverty, the struggles of mental illness, the struggle of cancer, and yet were faithful witnesses and examples for us.
That's one of the real values of the saints, not only to be helpers, but to be examples that we can look to their virtues, the virtues of the way they lived, gentleness or humility or courage or faithfulness or the life of prayer that in them we can see or joy. In them, we can see how we might be invited to live.
Sisters and brothers, if we pay attention to the members of the Communion of Saints, if we call upon them for their help, if we are attuned to their goodness, we indeed will be renewed.
Reflection Questions:
How does the idea of a "cloud of witnesses" impact your understanding of Faith and community?
What saint or example of holiness inspires you most in your spiritual journey, and why?
How can you incorporate the virtues of saints, like humility or courage, into your daily life?