“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation…so that…you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe…” (NRSV, Ephesians 1:17,18, 19)

When we think of the Blessed Saints our minds probably turn first to Our Blessed Lady, the Queen of Heaven and the Apostles, the Princes of the Heavenly Court.  But besides them there are countless others whose lives on earth reached out beyond the heroic to the sublime, and who, at this actual moment are in Heaven in the Visible Presence of God himself.

Of these, some are commemorated in the Church’s Calendar, others have no memorial on earth at all.  But those in the Calendar may be regarded as typical of the devotion and courage of the rest, whether martyrs or not.

Thus there is Agnes, a child-martyr who died in Rome in around 304 when she was about 12 or 13 years old. (1) Or Perpetua, Felicity and their companions who, for the sake of Our Blessed Lord, were thrown to wild animals in the arena at Carthage in 203. (2)

Coming nearer home, we remember Thomas à Becket who, for his fearless loyalty to God and for his unyielding defence of God’s Church, was martyred in Canterbury Cathedral.  And nearer to us in time there is Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan priest, who in 1941 gave his life to save a fellow prisoner – a married man with children – from death by starvation in Auschwitz.  In this way Maximilian died a martyr to charity. (3)

Does not a roll of honour containing such people and a multitude like them, make us proud to belong to God’s Church?  For, just as soldiers identify with the victories of their army, so do we, fellow-soldiers with the Saints, regard their triumph for Christ and his Church as our triumph also.  So when our religion is attacked, we can quickly put things in their right perspective by comparing its scoffers with its champions.

Even more valuable is the example of a holy Christian life which the saints have left us.  When we are tempted to think that the holiness of Christ and the standard which he requires are beyond human attainment, the lives and victory of the Saints prove precisely the contrary; and we gather renewed hope as we reflect on the perfection which, by using God’s grace, they have already achieved, and which therefore we can achieve too.

But the example of those few whose lives we know is not the sum total of the assistance which we can receive from the Saints, for they are living people: they are not just characters in the history books, mere figures of the past.  And Heaven, where they are, is not far away and inaccessible.  It is only where God is seen and, therefore, the closer our union with God the nearer we are to Heaven and to them.  The Saints are with us to assist us by their prayers, and we are surrounded by them on every side as we run our earthly race.  The author of the Letter to the Hebrews compares them to the spectators in the amphitheatre at Antioch who, like a great encircling cloud, look row upon row down into the arena below, where the athletes compete for victory in the games.

So the Blessed Saints are watching us today in the race of life with the same intent interest, and are helping us on by the power of their prayers.  St James assures us that, “The prayer of the righteous” even here on earth “is powerful and effective” (NRSV, James 5:16).  How much more effectual, therefore, are the prayers made by those spotless souls as they stand before the Eternal God and look upon his Face in perfect understanding of his will?

It is one of our greatest blessings and privileges within the Catholic Church that we can address the Blessed Saints by name and ask them to pray for us to God, with the assurance that our prayers to them do not go unanswered.  For prayer knows no limits.  It can penetrate everywhere, beyond the seeming barriers of distance and of death, to where the Blessed Saints are standing before the Throne of God.  

It is our prayers to them and their unfailing response which combine to make the Communion of Saints, in which we profess our belief in the Creed, into a living fact.  And indeed our Christian fellowship would inevitably be incomplete and defective if it excluded the glorious company of the Apostles and Martyrs and Saints of every age, and were confined merely to the Christians of our own generation and the holy souls in Purgatory.

Unlike the Saints, however, we still look to the future as we set before ourselves the hope of sharing with them the sight and Presence of God and of enjoying for ever “...the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints…” (NRSV, Ephesians 1:18).  Heaven is our true home towards which we should nightly pitch our moving tent.  The way is narrow and steep, its surface rough and broken and only by courage and perseverance can its end be reached.  It is no road for the spiritual loiterer or backslider, and that is why Our Blessed Lord has warned us, that we must, not just seek, but strive and struggle.  “Strive” he said, “to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (RSV, Luke 13:24, our emphasis).

The crown is for those who have fought and won the battle against their temptations and their sins and their lower selves.  It is not, and never can be, for those who have taken the line of least resistance and have been content to think and speak and do much as they pleased.  

Let us then take as our example the Blessed Saints who have won through by using the life of God and the “…immeasurable greatness…” (NRSV, Ephesians 1:19) of his power which he so freely gives within the Church to all who are determined to struggle on and upwards in their steps.

References

1. Attwater, D. (1965) The Penguin dictionary of saints, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.

2. Watkins, Dom Basil (ed) (7th edition) (202) The book of saints, London: A&C Black.

3. Farmer, D. (5th edition) (2011) Oxford dictionary of the saints, Oxford: Oxford University Press.