One of the most beautiful articles in the Apostles’ Creed is that which speaks of the “communion of saints.” Understanding these three words can sow the seeds of deep spiritual growth. As we shall see, there is a strong link between our understanding of saints and our understanding of the Eucharist. In this Update I’d like to name four ways in which we can understand the significance of the communion of saints, including a reflection on the communion of saints in light of the Eucharist.
Mortal saints
First of all, we can understand “communion of saints” as referring to ourselves as the community of believers. There is biblical justification for giving the “communion of saints” this meaning. St. Paul quite regularly addressed his letters to the saints of the Church to which he wrote: the saints (the holy ones) at Ephesus, the saints at Colossae, for example. True, when he wrote to the Corinthians, he hesitated a bit and finally addressed them as “called to be saints.” That’s quite understandable if you know anything about the people who belonged to the Corinthian Church!
We rightly deserve to be called saints, as people baptized into Christ. For Baptism unites us to Jesus, the Holy One of God. And united to Jesus we are united and related to one another. We constitute a communion. The communion of saints is another way of designating the Church.
Immortal saints
There is a second way in which we use the term “communion of saints,” namely, to designate those who have entered through death into the fullness of God. Thus, the communion of saints in this context refers to the blessed in heaven: Saints Peter, Paul, Francis, Clare, Catherine, Anne, Joachim, etc., as well as our Aunt Minnie, Uncle Mike, cousin Amanda and all the others who have lived as holy children of God.
We used to speak of these people as belonging to the “Church Triumphant.” But this was only an analogy. The blessed in heaven, of course, do not belong to any Church, as we know it. They don’t need the Church anymore. They have already achieved what the Church exists to help them achieve, namely, full union with God.
In heaven the ecumenical goal is fully realized. No longer are there Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims or Buddhists. Those are earthly ways to think of humanity. Of course there are persons, unique in their own individuality. Yet unique though they are, they are now perfectly one with God.
Communion of saints—all of us!
There is a third way in which we use the term “communion of saints.” It is really a combination of the first two. This combined communion of saints includes all of us who are more or less saints (some more, some less) plus all those who have entered into full communion with God. We are all related because Baptism is so strong a link that not even death can break it.
It is especially this more expansive understanding of the communion of saints that we celebrate each November on the feast of All Saints. To use James Joyce’s words, it’s a “here comes everybody” feast. Everybody belongs, no matter how high or low they may be on the sanctity scale.
How are we—saints in process—related to the saints who have entered into the fullness of divine life? Elizabeth Johnson, in her splendid book on the communion of saints called Friends of God and Prophets, speaks of two different paradigms for understanding that relationship: “one an egalitarian model that names [the saints] as companions and friends, the other a patriarchal [model] that casts certain privileged dead into positions of patronage.”
In the first model they are that wonderful “cloud of witnesses” spoken of in Hebrews (12:1) who are our friends, encouraging us, rooting for us, also challenging us to complete the work they had begun.
In the second model, they are seen as heavenly intercessors around the throne of God who manipulate heavenly strings for us. We are their clients and they are our patrons. Dr. Johnson quotes another author, sociologist Stephen Wilson: The saints are seen “as advocates pleading causes before a stern judge, as mediators, as go-betweens, as intriguers or wire-pullers at the court of heaven.” In this scheme of things the saints are arranged in a hierarchy, with Mary as the arch-intercessor.
It is not difficult to understand how the 16th-century reformers rebelled against this notion of patronage and saintly mediation, especially as it was misunderstood by many. Jesus was and is the one mediator. The reformers were not interested in any other mediators between Jesus and us.
The medieval Church had gone to one extreme in exaggerating the client/patron system, just as the 16th-century reformers went to the opposite extreme by pretty much ignoring the saints. The liturgical changes of Vatican II, in the 1960s, attempted to strike a balance. The highest priority was given to the paschal mystery of the Lord as the heart of the Church’s celebration. The veneration of the saints was given an important, but subordinate, place in the life of the Church.
It is the model of saints as friends that predominates in the liturgy. In the Eucharist we remember the saints, and we honor them. But we see them as disciples of Jesus who join us as we worship, just as our worship is joined with their unceasing praise of God. Notice how in the liturgy we don’t pray to the saints as objects of worship, but rather to ask them to pray to God with us. All of us, in heaven and on earth, are worshiping God together.
http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU.aspx |
