Communion of Saints
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November 1, 2020Today, on All Saints’ Day, I would like to say a few words about the communion of saints – the one we live in, right here at Wrentham. Now wait a minute! – before you switch off your hearing aids in expectation of some pious claptrap, let me tell you why I think this is the plain truth.
On this day the liturgy presents us with the image of “one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the children of Israel” and “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue” (Rv 7:4, 9). This is a vision of the future, our future as God’s holy people.
The second reading from the first letter of John says it quite clearly:
“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.” (1 Jn 2-3)
The gospel Beatitudes illustrate the life of God’s holy ones, the life that is ours, beginning now. Today’s feast says that the communion of saints is not a “them” but an “us.”
If canonized saints are such because they lived earthly lives that are edifying and inspiring, this is in part because we can see the full arc of their growth, struggle, and transformation. They had to slog their way through the same kinds of trials and tribulations that we do. Sometimes God had to take extraordinary measures to turn their lives around. Did the people around them know they were living with saints? Did Bl. Carlo Acutis’ mom know that all along? What about St Augustine’s mom? The point I would like to make is that each of our lives is an arc too, but we don’t see its completion. We believe in God’s work of sanctification. The fact that, according to our perception of time, he hasn’t finished the job yet, does not mean there is discontinuity between our future glory and our present struggle. God sees the full arc of our lives. Under his gaze it is all one: growth, struggle, and transformation. We are his saints. In the ‘now’ of our time-bound lives, we are saints-in-the-making, otherwise known as sinners. We know that St Paul was not ashamed to address the Christians he knew as saints even as he scolded them. I enjoy that fact that the Mormons I have known do the same quite unselfconsciously. This is an expression of faith.
What does it mean to live with saints-in-the-making, otherwise known as sinners? One of you shared with me the moment when you began to feel at home in the community. It coincided with the realization that the sisters have faults – and plenty of them! Yes, now you felt this was a place where you could live in peace with your faults, rather than tiptoeing around pretending you didn’t have any. I think this is an important insight, which can shed light on the benefits of acknowledging our faults to one another. In Rumer Godden’s novel, In This House of Brede, she describes the monastic Chapter of Faults in a strikingly attractive way:
“The Chapter of Faults had the effect of welding the nuns together and making them like one another. ‘You can’t be afraid of someone, even as sharp and clever as Dame Agnes,’ said Cecily, ‘when you have seen her kneel down before us all, even us young ones she teaches, and say, ‘Three times yesterday I said things that cut,’ or ‘I lost my temper.’ ‘Especially when you know you will probably lose yours tomorrow,’ said Hilary.’” (Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede, 171)
We have an open forum once a month or so for anyone who wishes to apologize for anything before the community. We often hear about broken objects or forgotten duties, which I think is fine. Small as these things are, they may lay the groundwork for someone to mention something they are really sorry for, such as some hard-to-shake habit, impatience, rash judgment or insensitivity, which bedevil us continually in our living together. I think it’s important to remember that the point is not to make us feel badly about ourselves. It’s more about acknowledging that these difficulties between us inevitably crop up, which we recognize with regret, but we wish to keep on trying to live together in love. At their best, I think such conversations can help us to like each other better, and perhaps also to like ourselves better. I know I’ve had the experience of listening to another’s honest self-accusation and desire for growth and found welling up within me the urge to join in with my own words of regret and hope. Taking the risk of vulnerability makes way for a more confident self-entrustment for everyone. It doesn’t work every time. Sometimes we stumble and make a mess. Sometimes we’re just not in the mood. But once in a while we’re struck to the heart. Who would want to miss that? And so, we keep trying. We believe in the arc of our lives. We believe in the communion of saints.
On the other hand, if we limit our gaze to the faults of others, we will inhabit a hell of our own making. I am haunted by Dante’s description of the frigid ninth circle of hell in which one man gnaws on his neighbor’s head eternally. It haunts me because it is something I could choose. The cycle of my negative thoughts about others can bring me to such an interior hell. As Dante also illustrates in Purgatorio, anger, resentment or chronic misunderstanding can form a stinging fog that blinds us to another’s good qualities, their profound struggles, and their desire for God. We simply cannot see the truth about them and their eternal destiny. How can our vision be restored?
Evagrius suggests that one way of getting past the block is to give that person a gift. How delightfully simple! It doesn’t have to be a skiing trip in the alps or even a great big bouquet of flowers. A small favor to make their life easier would do the trick. Another way to unlock our hearts is to have a conversation with the person. Really? Talk to her? Sure. Not a heavy-duty “Let’s fix up our relationship here and now” kind of talk, but just a short, simple exchange of greetings and what’s going on in life. Now, in the monastery we’re not in the habit of spending time each day “chewing the fat” as they say, just talking for the sake of it, and I’m not proposing we start. Silence and solitude are too necessary a part of our life to be squandered that way. But there are times when a good word is more necessary to foster peace. Our community gatherings can also be a chance to open our eyes to the fuller reality of another person. Why not take the opportunity to sit with someone we have had tension with, or whom we find a great mystery? Again, there’s no need to make a big, scary deal of it – “Tell me your whole life story in 15 minutes. Go!” No, we can be gentle. The goal is not to find out things, but to allow oneself to be surprised, delighted and better acquainted with the world of another person so as to cooperate with them more easily, to forgive them more readily, to pray for them more authentically and in a word to like them better. The final way I’d like to mention is also St Benedict’s last resort: prayer. I have in mind to carry one sister with me per day from now until Advent, just sitting with whatever I may know about her joys and struggles and hopes and fears, gifts and shortcomings and holding her before God. Perhaps you may like to try the same thing…
The question I put before you today is this: if both we and the people we live with will one day shine with heavenly glory in the fullness of our likeness to God, then why not anticipate that moment? Yes, these people we live with and struggle with and hurt and are hurt by and need to forgive seventy-times-seven times a day (at least) – “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. …they stand before God’s throne and worship him day and night in his temple.” (Rv 7:14-15). Why waste a minute living in hell, when we could be opening our eyes to the deifying light that reveals to us, in hints and guesses, what God has prepared for those who love him.
Perhaps this was all pious claptrap. Maybe you should have turned off those hearing aids after all. But I hope not. Let me end with St Benedict’s prayer and ours:
“May the Lord bring us all together to everlasting life” (RB 72.12)
Image: Tapestry from Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, LA, by John Nava
