Today we are celebrating the festival of All Saints and we can’t do without them, can we? Where would we get our clothes from if it weren’t for St Michael? Or cheese from St Ivel? Or our holidays from St Ives? Well, I suppose that is not quite what this day is all about, but saints are very much part of our local identity and here in Hereford we seem to have a lot of them. My favourite is St Dubricius, the patron saint of no less than seven Herefordshire churches and about whom my book says, in a rather sniffy way, “None of the traditions concerning him seem to merit credence.” Well, the traditions really are quite fruity, but we like them nevertheless. It’s a bit like St George, the patron saint of England who almost certainly did exist, but who never set foot in this country and it is doubtful if he had even heard about it. But we like the story of the dragon.
The medieval period saw the greatest blossoming of the cult of saints. In medieval times churches were highly decorated with wall paintings, stained glass windows and images of the saints each surrounded by candles, making the church look like medieval ideas of heaven. The great thing about saints was that they are human, but now in heaven, as opposed to angels which only occasionally visit earth. Consequently, saints could fix things up for you. Nicholas Orme writing in the Church Times some time ago noted that the early saints were generalists. Cuthbert, Peter or Thomas Beckett cured your fever, set your broken arm, or saved your children from drowning. But by about 1300, the spiritual health service had become more specialised. Apollonia operated on toothache, Clair on eyesight and Erasmus on intestinal disorders. In the end, every community needed a saint and they were dragged out from myth and history.
All this was swept away during the reformation. “There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2.5) and this was one of the central texts of the reformation. The idea of saints as mediators was ridiculous and so the word “saint” changed to become simply someone following Christ, a Christian. As a result, the images were destroyed, the paintings white-washed and the cult of the saints forgotten. By about 1730, many churches had lost their dedications and it was really antiquarian interest in the mid-nineteenth century which revived them. But the problem then was what to do with the ones which were forgotten and an ingenious solution was found: although churches might have lost their dedications, they did not lose their festivals: consequently, if a church had a festival on the 25th July, it must have been dedicated to St James. Unfortunately for this theory, churches with winter saints were nevertheless highly likely to hold their festivals in summer, so dedications like ours at Colwall are always just a little bit suspect. But I don’t suppose anybody is ever going to propose we change it.
So let’s not focus too much on the saints of history, but think of ourselves, the saints of the present day. Are we worthy to join that mighty band, drawn from the four corners of the earth. Do you know the negro spiritual, When the saints go marching in? Of course you do, but I bet you don’t know the lyrics. The first verse is like this:
We are trav'ling in the
footsteps
Of those who've gone before,
And we'll all be reunited,
On a new and sunlit shore,
Oh, when the saints go marching in
Oh, when the saints go marching in
Lord, how I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
It’s a lovely song and it catches the thought that we are engaged in a mighty enterprise, the coming of the Kingdom of God. We’re not fighting this battle on our own and unaided but in the company of others who act as an example for us.
Now I think it is important also to have a clear idea of what we are fighting for and I am absolutely delighted that the gospel reading today was the Sermon on the Mount. Wouldn’t it be far better if this was the centre of all our services, rather than the Creed? “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” – we so easily forget these central words of our faith. Sainthood is not about martyrdom, or excessive fasting, or wearing hair shirts. It is about following Christ and it is what we all should do who call ourselves Christians.
But in this journey of ours, the people who have gone before can be inspiring. One hero of mine is Oscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador, a man who followed the traditional teaching of his church, but gradually became more and more aware of the wickedness in government and the needs of his people. He committed himself to the poor and the persecuted, and he became the catalyst for radical moral prophecy in the church and outside it. Meanwhile, his church began to document the abuse of human rights, and to establish the truth in a country governed by lies, where men and women simply disappeared without account. The press attacked him vehemently. Romero, it was said, allied the church with revolutionaries. This he repudiated: the church was not a political movement. But when a succession of priests were murdered Romero found in their deaths ‘A testimony of a church incarnated in the problems of its people.’ A church embodied, realised and living in the problems of its people.
On 24 March 1980 he was suddenly shot dead while celebrating mass in the chapel of the hospital where he lived. Today the memory of Oscar Romero is cherished by the people of El Salvador, and by countless Christians across the world. His funeral was attended by 250,000 people – and interrupted by bombs, probably thrown by Salvadorian death squads. He is in the process of being canonised, at a somewhat slow pace, but I don’t think the process of canonisation will add anything to his witness, just as it won’t add anything to that of Mother Teresa. We don’t really need the Roman Catholic church to tell us these people were good and followed Christ: their lives speak for themselves.
There’s a wonderful passage on faith in the epistle to the Hebrews, speaking of people like this:
They were too good for a world like this. They were refugees in deserts and on the hills, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. These also, one and all, are commemorated for their faith; and yet they did not enter upon the promised inheritance, because, with us in mind. God had made a better plan, that only in company with us should they reach their perfection.
And what of ourselves? With all these witnesses to faith around us like a cloud, we must throw off every encumbrance, every sin to which we cling, and run with resolution the race for which we are entered, our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom faith depends from start to finish.
Well, I can’t do better than end with the last verse
of When
the saints go marching in:
Some say this world of
trouble,
Is the only one we need,
But I'm waiting for that morning,
When the new world is revealed.
Oh, when the saints go marching in
Lord, how I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in