All Saints

 All Saints Day 2024

Today we are celebrating the feast of All Saints, or All Hallows day, yesterday having been all hallows eve or Halloween as it is now known. Hallowed is an old word that can have two meanings. One is that if something is hallowed it is holy. When we pray the traditional words of the Lords prayer we say hallowed be thy name, meaning holy be thy name. The second meaning is something that is revered. Aspects of both meanings may be applied to saints. They are men and women who in some way are seen as especially holy. They are also people who we can look up to and revere as fantastic examples of how we should try to be.

All sorts of people can become saints. Saints aren't born saints. One of my favourite quotes comes from Oscar Wilde, “every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” Perhaps one of the best known examples of this is St Augustine, who according to his confessions led a wild life of drink, sex and whatever the equivalent of rock and roll was in his day until he was converted to a life of faith and became an important theologian, there will be more about him and his mum later.

The church of England doesn't create new saints now, although we do have commemorations for those that are deemed worthy. The Roman Catholic and orthodox churches still make new saints. 

Nine hundred and twelve saints have been canonised by pope Francis, so far, and there are more currently going through the process that leads to formal sainthood.

Saints are often categorised as different types. The more observant among you will have noticed we have different coloured vestments in use this evening. These represent the different types of saints and I want to spend a bit of time looking as some examples of each one.

Red, not surprisingly is for martyrs. When you think of a martyr, what is it that comes to mind. I suspect for a lot of people it will be the apostles and other martyrs of the early church who were killed during the various Roman persecutions. 

The first martyr was of course St Stephen, he was chosen and commissioned by the church to help serve a group of Greek widows. However he also did some preaching which led to accusations of blasphemy and Stephen was stoned to death. St Stephen may have been the first martyr but sadly has certainly not been the last. Indeed the Vatican as of last year has investigated the cases of 550 martyrs in the last twenty five years. Being a Christian can still be a dangerous thing to do. 

We often think of martyrs as those killed for refusing to recant their faith, but some martyrs become martyrs because of how their faith compels them to act. St Maximilian Kolbe was a polish priest, during the second world war he helped refugees including Jews trying to escape. He was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. One day a prisoner escaped and in order to deter future escapes ten men were picked to be starved to death. One of the selected men cried out my wife, my children. Maximilian Kolbe then offered to take his place. That action which was prompted by his Christian faith led to his death and eventually to canonisation as a martyr of the church.

The next colour we have is white, this represents those who were recognised as saints due to their exceptional holiness, or have been great theological thinkers. These two things don't always go together. St Augustine, as I have already mentioned, didn't always live a holy life. In his confessions he recounts an occasion when he stole some fruit, not because he needed it or wanted it, but just for the fun of stealing. He also had a son from a relationship with a concubine that he never married. However after a change of heart he eventually became a priest and then a bishop. His theological writings have played an important role in the development of Christian thinking. 

Another scholar who became a saint was St Bede. He was a monk in Anglo Saxon Northumberland and is generally regarded as having written the first history of England in the way we would understand history today. According to one book that I was reading when preparing this sermon, called Drinking with the saints, Bede was also one night at a gathering with some monks who had perhaps had a little too much to drink and was accused of heresy. 

People will sometimes pray to a specific Saint for help with certain issues. Bede’s tomb is in Durham cathedral and just before my first year Greek exam I went to Bede and prayed something like. Bede you were a scholar you must know some greek please put some into my head for the next few hours. I passed my exam so it must have worked!

Our final colour is green, now green is the colour we use for ordinary time, what has the ordinary got to do with saints who are thought of as extraordinary? Well some saints become saints because of their perseverance in ordinary things. We have already mentioned St Augustine's change of heart from wild young man to priest. The person who is credited with having played a large part in this is St Monica. Monica was Augustine's mum. She prayed for him every day and Augustine tells of how her life of faith eventually influenced him. In many ways Monica was an ordinary woman living out in her faith in her daily life and praying daily for those she loved, but by that example she helped those close to her to find God. An ordinary woman in many ways doing ordinary things, but in such a way that she became a saint.

I recently came across a description of a saint as someone who is transparent, who lets God shine through. I think St. Monica must have been like this. I am sure we have all met people in our journeys of faith that let God shine through, there may even be some in this church community now. The big question though is, do we let God shine through us, can we be a saint that lights the path for someone else? I am reminded of an old hymn from childhood, the first verse goes 

“Jesus bids us shine

With a pure clear light

Like a little candle burning in the night

In this world of darkness, we must shine

You in your small corner

and I in mine.”

So as we celebrate all the saints let us all try to be a bit more saint like and shine God’s light into the darkness of the world.

Amen