By Molly T. Marshall
Some of the excesses of Catholic spirituality — veneration of statues and feasts that celebrate primarily a European notion of sainthood (brave men and docile women) — have left our branch of the church unsure about any theology of the saints. “Saint” has become a rather derisive word, describing a person a bit too removed from the ordinary concourse of life. But that is hardly fair.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, there are frequent references to the forebears in faith who have marked out the pathway. Although not a people in the same sense that the Jewish people are, Christians drew upon the biblical theme of the holy people who participate in God’s holiness to articulate their own sense of identity.
This comes to expression in the term koinonia, variously translated as community, sharing, fellowship, participation or communion. It is a word that easily slides from one connected meaning to another. The word also refers to solidarity with the Spirit of God: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the koinonia of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14).
In the New Testament, the term “the saints” comes into play to express this sense of being a holy community. Sometimes it refers to those who have died for the faith, but its primary referent is the Christian community as a whole. There are no individual persons named “saints” in the New Testament, the term being reserved for the whole community. It is a remarkably egalitarian description of the relationship of companions in faith.
The whole church is a communion of saints. Saints are all the living people who form the eschatological community, chosen and beloved, called, gifted and sent by God. While sinners, they are nevertheless redeemed in Christ and their lives aim to reflect this in their passionate faith in God and their loving responsibility toward the world.
Early on, the church confessed its belief in “the communion of saints” and the “life everlasting.” They were right to link these two ideas, but it had the effect of placing the idea of saints only in the afterlife. This caused an unfortunate rupture in the Body of Christ between those in this life and those in the life to come.
A number of years ago a student came to me with an interesting pastoral situation. His mother had died in a car wreck about a year before. After working hard on his grief, he had begun to ask some questions about her status in the afterlife.
“Does my mother know anything about my life, or is she just kind of a zombie?” he asked. “Will she know when I get married, when I have children, what happens in my life?”
His anguished questions prompted me to reflect with him about the “cloud of witnesses” described in Hebrews 11 — those figures, women and men, whose faith makes them exemplary encouragement to the living. The end of the chapter, however, notes that they were not yet able to receive the fullness of the promise. They would not be made perfect apart from us.
Chapter 12 begins with the exhortation to perseverance, seeing as “we are surrounded with this cloud of witnesses.” Interpreters usually refer to an image of a great stadium in which a race is occurring. The witnesses are in the spectator seats, urging on those in the race.
Yet the implications of this imagery are rarely explored in terms of the communion between those in the stands — “whose race is won” — and those on the track in their pilgrimage of faith.
Jürgen Moltmann offers insight into this relationship between the dead and alive in Christ. He writes: “The dead in Christ are as close to us as the alive in Christ.”
Moltmann describes the indestructible community of the living and the dead, all of which are in Christ. He encourages Christians to “come close to the dead” through coming closer to Christ. “They are beside us wherever the Spirit of life lays hold of us and makes us happy,” he writes.
In a sense, there is a reciprocal relationship between these two parts of Christ’s body. We are encouraged by the witness of those who have gone before. We remember their lives and cling to the hope of resurrection together.
Their witness is tested by our faithfulness. They depend upon us to join them in memory and hope, and their perfection depends upon ours.
We also pray with them as they yearn lovingly over us. We discover their nearness in the community of Christ in prayer, Eucharist, remembrance and “mystic sweet communion.” The unity of Christ’s body cannot be severed, even by death. They, like we, await the final consummation.
I responded to my student by saying that yes, his mother would be aware of his life and would take enduring interest in it. I suggested that it would be OK to talk with her and share the significant passages of life with her. I assured him that she was with Christ and would be reunited with him in resurrection to the life everlasting.
He was comforted. And I would suggest the same for us. While we are not trying to spring our relatives out of purgatory by buying indulgences, we must remember those who have gone before us and intercede for their well-being. We may also be confident that their concern for us is an instrument of grace, as well.
Communing with the saints is a “practical doctrine” in that it reminds us that we were created for enduring community with the Triune God and one another. The human community was created to reflect the divine life by establishing identity through relationships of love.
On this All Saints Day, it is time we reclaim the language of saints and give thanks for ongoing communion with them.