From dust-covered saints to living faith

by Fr. Sean A. Lotz

• Introduction -- Hello from the hagiographer
• What is saint, anyway? Part 1
• What is saints, anyway? Part 2
• Who decides who gets to be a saint? Part 1
• Who decides who gets to be a saint? Part 2
• The saints as a continuation of the biblical process

Introduction: Hello from the Hagiographer

The title of this column gives a fairly accurate idea of my intention. As self-appointed Hagiographer (person who studies and writes about the saints) for the diocese, it is my goal to help the people of the Church experience the saints not as dust-covered relics of a former age, or tacky plaster statues in an empty church, but as living embodiments of the Faith delivered to his people by Jesus our Lord. Having proclaimed myself hagiographer I must make a few points clear. I am a priest, a minister of Christ and a servant of his people. That is the first fact of my life, and governs (by the grace of God, I pray) everything I do. I am not a curator of a dimly lit museum of moldy icons and unbelievable miracle stories. I am not a member of any "Society for Creative Celtic Catholic Anachronisms". I am a minister of the Gospel of Christ, and that means that everything I do must have as its ultimate goal the bringing of souls into a closer and more meaningful relationship with God, with his power and his love. Therefore, I do not pursue my interest in the saints as an antiquarian hobby, but in the firm conviction that it is an appropriate and very powerful way to introduce people to God and to teach them how to live as Christians.

It is my belief that by knowing the saints, we know God better; by imitating them, we live a better Christian life; by doing devotions to them, we honor God; by contemplating them, we discern God's love and the various aspects of his power; by enjoying them, we learn to enjoy the effects that the grace of God can have in our own lives. As I have come to delight more and more in the saints in general, and a select few in particular, my delight in God has grown. I have become more aware of his profligate gifts given to his people and his creation. My mind and heart have been elevated to new heights of devotion to him and his will. It is my hope in this column to spread that delight, to foster that knowledge, to instill yet deeper devotion to the God who reveals himself in his holy ones, and in so doing to make more saints.

What is a Saint, anyway? -- Part 1

The word saint means "holy person". It comes from Latin sanctus (sacred or consecrated). It translates the Greek word hagios (set apart for God) and Hebrew qds (set apart). So a saint is one who is consecrated, or set apart for God. A saint is a holy person. And holy comes from an ancient root word meaning "whole, uninjured, healthy, lacking nothing essential to a thing's nature". The earliest use of the word is in the New Testament, where St. Paul refers to all Christians as "saints". Here he means that all of us have been set apart for God, consecrated to his purposes, and are called to be spiritually healthy, lacking nothing essential to our human nature. Of course, the thing lacking to our nature as intended by God is relationship with him and likeness to him. So we as saints are those who have been restored to that relationship, had the likeness of God renewed in them, and are now whole persons. So we see that the saints are first and foremost all of us Christians.

But fairly early in the Church's life, we recognized that some saints were more obviously so than the rest of us. Some of the saints made such an impression on other Christians that they were not forgotten even after they died. They were well known to large numbers of the faithful, and held a special place in the hearts of many. It was these "special saints" that gave the rest of us assurance that Christianity "works", that it actually produces people set apart for God and restored to right relationship with him. So how could we forget them? Our earlier brothers and sisters began naming their children and churches after these people, remembering the dates of their deaths as special celebrations, telling and re-telling their stories. And since they showed so clearly what all of us can and are meant to be, they were simply called "saints".

What is a Saint, anyway? -- Part 2

After church one Sunday, a mother asked her son if he knew what a saint was. He thought for a moment, during which he remembered the stained glass windows in the church, and finally replied, "A saint is someone the light shines through." And that perfectly describes who these special saints are for us: they are people through whom the light of Christ shines with particular clarity. On a more concrete level, "saint" is often defined as "a Christian exhibiting heroic sanctity." So they are our heroes in the faith, people we look up to and strive to imitate. They show us what it means to live a Christian life on earth. While it is true that Jesus Christ himself is our ultimate role-model, it must be remembered that he is not a Christian, a follower of himself. He shows us what we are called to be, and saves us from our sins, but the examples of the saints show us how to follow him, how to live as a saved human person.

A saint can also be thought of as one side of a multi-faceted gem. Christ is the beauty of the whole stone, but we see that beauty one aspect at a time in the saints. Most saints are remembered for some particular virtue or activity; in those virtues and activities we see different areas of God's concern and Christ's saving work. And, as the saints are members of the Body of Christ, we see modeled in them the proper function of members of that Body, and we see Christ himself working through his Body on earth.

Who decides who gets to be a Saint? -- Part 1

In the beginning of our religion, while we were still heavily persecuted, many of us were killed for professing the Name of Jesus. We met on the Lord's Day in the catacombs and graveyards where these martyrs were buried and celebrated the Eucharist on their tombs, rejoicing in their witness and in the assurance that they who had shared Christ's suffering on earth were now sharing his glory in heaven. These saints who had shed their blood for the Gospel were the first to be acknowledged saints. This acknowledgment was by obvious mutual consent of the people of the local Church. As the stories began to circulate, the Christians in other towns and areas would learn of the martyrs of other places and would celebrate their memories also. This was the beginning of the roll of the saints.

As time went on, and especially after the persecutions stopped, the Church began to broaden its concept of heroic sanctity. There were many people who, while they had not shed their blood, had poured out their lives in selfless devotion to Christ. There were dynamic Bishops, evangelists and missionaries, holy women who radiated God's love, devoted men of God, and the monks in the desert. All these were worthy of remembrance and imitation. They also came to be called "saints", still by an organic process of mutual consent.

As the Church on the continent got larger, and as the Roman spirit of organization and centralization came to effect the Church more and more, the process of declaring who was a saint was placed, rather naturally, in the hands of the bishops. With the increase of power by the Bishop of Rome, he, more and more, was the one to make the pronouncement, with his clergy making the decisions. In the east, where the patriarchs never achieved the total authority that the Bishop of Rome did, the decisions and declarations are still left to local bishops or the head bishops of regions. In our own Church, the original process never really changed. Canonization (the act of declaring someone to be on the "canon", which means list, of saints) was always very informal.

Suppose there was a hermit named Cynfarch in the woods near your village. He was a very holy man, and people flock to him to hear his teaching. After his death, people still go to his hut to meditate and celebrate the Eucharist. Everyone knows that he must be in heaven, since "by their fruits shall you know them", and this man's fruits were obviously of God. Eventually the hut is referred to as St. Cynfarch's chapel. The locals remember the anniversary of his heavenly birthday. Word of his sanctity spreads and others also begin to consider him a saint. And thus he is: a saint of God by God's own action, a saint of the Church by the acknowledgment of the people.

Who decides who gets to be a Saint? -- Part 2

I will show this process of canonization in action as we have done it in the Diocese of St. Brendan of the Celtic Catholic Church. In modern times, we have canonized one saint in this diocese, a very dear woman named Mary Hazel Zeck, called Hazel. She was one of the first people to respond to Bishop Dwain's ministry in Carbon Canyon, San Bernardino County. Those who knew her, which in the beginnings of the Diocese was everybody, saw in her a certain sanctity, a certain inspiration that endeared her to all of us. At her death, of course, many people prayed for her and cried for the loss of her. But on the following Sunday, in at least one congregation, her name was inserted into the litany of Saints. This was a one-time event, but it happened because the people of that church who had known her knew that she was in heaven and a saint of God. Throughout the Church, people began to think of her as one might think of a favorite saint, not as dead and out of reach (remember- Christians don't believe in death: we've already died and been reborn), but as alive in Christ. It was natural for some people to ask for her prayers: she had loved us and prayed for us while alive in the body, and now she still loves us and prays for us while alive outside of the body. The following year at Synod, the request was made from a member that we announce formally that Mary Hazel Zeck is a saint. We decided to vote on it, and the vote, after silent prayer and consideration, was unanimous. The people of God had spoken, and it is our confidence that in us, as the Body of Christ, the Holy Spirit spoke. Now her name is officially included in the Litany of the Saints, and her prayers are asked by many people.

The Saints as a Continuation of the Biblical Process

Have you ever read the Tao Te Ching? Or the Vedas, the teachings of Buddha, the Koran, or any of the world's great Scriptures? If you have, you might have been impressed with how "sensible" they are as holy books. Consisting primarily of religious and moral principles, they explain the foundational beliefs of their respective religions very well. The story is told of a Hindu, who, on reading the Bible from cover to cover, remarked, "There is nothing religious in it." And based on what he was expecting a Sacred Scripture to contain, he was exaggerating only slightly. Unlike most of these other books, the Bible, which begins with the words, "In the beginning. . . .", and ends with the vision of the new Jerusalem and Christ's assurance, "Surely I am coming very quickly," is primarily a book of history and story. It records the lofty and the vile, honestly presenting a history of the world from beginning to eventual end.

But it is not a "secular" book of history, of course, nor is history in any modern sense its first concern. It is the record of God's involvement in that history, from Creation to climax; it presents his involvement in the lives of the people in its pages, from Adam to Christ. Mostly it is a record of one people's relationship with the Creator.

Christianity is based on the belief that God reveals himself to us mainly in the working out of history and in the lives of his servants. In one sense, the climax of the scriptural story is the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, because then the Holy Spirit descended to fill the hearts of believers, and has continued to do so till the present, making countless numbers of people to be his instruments in the world. Thus God continues to enter into and work in the history of the world and its peoples. That historical process of God's self-revelation did not end with the book of Acts. In the lives of the Apostles and the Martyrs, and all their spiritual children, the Holy Spirit continues to act. In the lives of Christians for two thousand years, God has continued to reveal himself, and has continuously entered the world of history in the lives of his chosen. The historical process begun in the Bible has been continued in the lives of the saints from then till now. In the saints we see God at work in the world. We see his nature revealed, we hear his word spoken. Even if every copy of the Bible were to suddenly disappear, we still would know the nature of God by looking at those in whom he dwells and through whom he communicates himself with such clarity.