Catholic and Protestant saints

I’ve heard many a Christian remark on the occasion of a moral failing, “Well, I’m no saint.” But as Christian scripture would have it, they are nonetheless.

The Greek word hagioi, translated as “saints” throughout the New Testament, refers to the whole of God’s people, the faithful -- before the birth and ministry of Jesus Christ and after.

In this sense, “saint” is a state of being -- of living in God’s grace through faith -- not a state of attainment.

With the approach of All Saints’ Day, I began to read a book I recently got from Paraclete Press titled “The Lure of Saints: A Protestant Experience of Catholic Tradition.” The author, Jon M. Sweeney, writes in the introduction:

“Saints are first and foremost the people of God -- all people, alive or dead, who are graced by the Spirit of God. No wonder we see ourselves reflected in them. We are saints! But when we talk about the saints we usually mean something more closely defined; we mean the exemplary figures, the important models of sanctity, who have defined over the centuries what it means to be a Christian.”

The person who apologizes by saying “I’m no saint” has “the saints” in mind. They are thinking perhaps of St. Mary or of the many martyrs who have died rather than betray their faith. Certainly they are thinking of someone thought to have lived a commendably holy life, someone who succeeded in living a Christian life much better than they are managing themselves.

Thanks to one of my maternal great-grandmothers, a devout Roman Catholic woman I knew as Mama Cieutat (my other great-grandmother, Mama Phillians, was a Baptist) I grew up knowing many of this kind of saint as my friends. They were never farther from me than a prayer.

As a child, I never questioned the logistics or theology. I simply talked to these kindly departed souls as I would talk to any living friend or relative. They were, I found, often more sympathetic and available. They were good at listening.

Until the morning of April 24, I never grasped so well what Sweeney’s book addresses in all its messy details: the difference between the Protestant view and the Catholic tradition regarding saints.

In the wee hours of Sun., April 24, I watched part of the televised pontifical inauguration and listened to Pope Benedict XVI deliver his homily. He began, “During these days of great intensity, we have chanted the Litany of the Saints on three different occasions.”

The litany was sung at the funeral of John Paul and 10 days later at the initiation of the conclave of cardinals, who would elect his successor. It was sung again at the inaugural Mass of newly elected Pope.

Of each occasion, Benedict said, “I found great consolation in listening to this prayerful chant ... those who believe are never alone -- neither in life nor in death.” I too found comfort in that fact and its expression in the Litany of the Saints.

Later that morning I attended a worship service at a Protestant church near my home. As the pastor began his sermon, he mentioned watching the inaugural Mass. I nearly fell out of the pew when, referring to the Litany of the Saints, he said, “To ask during any funeral -- to ask those great Christians in heaven to pray for us ... or to pray for the one who died, this really rubbed me the wrong way.”

We ask our friends to pray for us, I thought; why wouldn’t we ask them?

Someone, he said, told him there are 464 saints in the Roman Catholic Church, which reminded him of how many more saints his own church has.

“We’re all saints,” he said to the congregation. “Right? We’re all saints, and that’s the great message for us this morning.”

He seemed to have missed it, but that was the pope’s great message earlier that morning too. Scarcely a minute into his homily, he said, “The Communion of Saints consists not only of the great men and women who went before us and whose names we know. All of us belong to the Communion of the Saints.”

Asking the saints to pray for us rubbed the pastor the wrong way, it turned out, the same way it rubs him the wrong way when people ask him to pray for them because he is a pastor. He objects to the idea, as he sees it, that pastors or priests or the saints are “a little more holy, a little closer to heaven, a little more righteous, a little more sanctified than other Christians, so their prayers have a little more weight with God.”

Such are the contentions Sweeney’s book is cut from. He writes about how he came to love the saints and how he came to love the Catholic imagination. On his journey, he manages to dispel a fair amount of Protestant misunderstanding about what Catholics believe and practice concerning saints.

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Nathan Söderblom said, “Saints are persons who make it easier for others to believe in God.”

I think Sweeney would add to that: Saints are persons who make it easier to see the image of God in others and in ourselves.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She can be reached at michele@soulfoodfiles.com.

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