The Idea of Feast Days
December 10, 2010
According to the Episcopal Church’s Holy Women, Holy Men, today is a day available to celebrate the great Karl Barth. Here is the collect:
“Almighty God, source of justice beyond human knowledge: We thank you for inspiring Karl Barth to resist tyranny and exalt your saving grace, without which we cannot apprehend your will. Teach us, like him, to live by faith, and even in chaotic and perilous times to perceive the light of your eternal glory, Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, throughout all ages. Amen.”
I noted this on my Facebook wall with a link and an interesting conversation ensued. This began by something the always engaging Benjamin Guyer said, namely that Barth, a man who publicly berated his friends and who carried on a 20 year affair with Charlotte von Kirschbaum, could be said to be a major Christian intellectual but his moral conduct was far from being worthy of celebration on any calendar.
Responses tended to question whether this is a fair way to gauge the calendric worth of a saint. After all, it was said by one, “Luther hated Jews, Augustine killed heretics, St. Paul killed Christians”…it seems that being a saint is not dependent on a wholly virtuous life.
Ben stood by his guns though and said that “Barth lived in various ways that are fundamentally incompatible with what a calendar of saints is intended to do - namely hold up for emulation particular men and women.”
This brought up a question in my mind: Are calendars in fact intended to hold up lives for emulation? It seems that it will at least do this, but I think there is a deeper way to look at this that I think might make room for the possibility of “flawed” saints being joyfully celebrated.
Not that long ago, Derek Olsen put a piece up on the Episcopal Cafe’ asking some much needed questions about the criteria used to compile Holy Women, Holy Men. Do go read that piece. Though he does not there lay out a full argument, I believe he points us in the right direction. Ultimately, there needs to be a sense in which a calendar is christological and not reduceable to contemporary party idealogies.
I would like to suggest that the calendar of feasts should be less about pointing to exemplary lives for the sake of emulation, though this will be a very strong feature of many such celebrations, but more about recognizing that these lives represent particularly strong points of intensity in the life of the Church that witness to the saving grace of God – His salvation is here being worked out amongst us. We recognize in them that God’s life and work became undeniably clear and the feast is not to celebrate the virtue in a life as such, but to respond in praise to the God who has made Godself known. It is a mark of God’s continuing faithfulness to bring his work to completion.
To elaborate even further, I’d like to suggest that the saints point to a Life that makes our lives coherent. The trustworthiness of these lives points to the trustworthiness of the God for whom they lived. In pointing beyond themselves, there is room to ‘allow’ that even the saints will not always come off so saintly. +Rowan Williams expresses what I’m trying to say like this:
“Often all we can do is go on telling the stories of those who keep us going; I may not look very credible, but I can at least point to someone who does. And as long as there are those who effectively and bravely take responsibility for God, the doors remain open and the possibility is there for others, perhaps very slowly, to find their way to a point where they can say…’I want to live int he same world as them; I want to know what they know and drink from the same wells.” – Tokens of Trust, 28
I’m aware that +Williams was not talking about the same thing I am talking about per se, but I think this holds true for what the celebration of saints is supposed to accomplish. By doing this there will be some who will inspire us to deeper levels of discipleship by emulation, but there are others who are significant for reasons that are not explicitly ethical, for instance someone like St. Ignatius of Loyola. Just as there are many gifts, so there are many ways in which to build up the life of the Church.
The Saints and I…and You, too…if You Want.
September 22, 2010
I would like to say that it’s complicated, but maybe it’s not, my relationship with the saints. I know that as an Episcopalian I’m allowed to do whatever I will with them. If I were on the low church, evangelical side of things, I could write them off completely, and go to one of those parishes that don’t have a patron saint–unfortunately, Grace Episcopal just doesn’t have the pathos for me that St. Alban’s Episcopal or St. Bede’s Episcopal does. On the other hand, if I were a bit more Anglo-Catholic than I am, I would probably be going all mari0logical on someone’s ass (forgive my French, O Theotokos). Being more realistically in the broad church part of the spectrum (as I understand it), and being a former member of the Assemblies of God, my understanding of saints and a Christian’s proper relationship to them is probably a little fuzzier (and more self-conscious) than someone who has grown up with Church Tradition being almost second nature.
Here are some fuzzy thoughts on saints, maybe my blog friends can help me scrub them up a bit:
1) I love saints. I love their stories, and that aspect is what I find the most spiritually efficacious. I am inspired by the lives of the saints to live my own life more wholly devoted to God. Wearing a saint’s medal around my neck reminds of my desire to live this godly lifestyle (an easy fact to forget sometimes), and marking saint’s feast days as a part of the Church Calendar helps me to live out the Christian life more fully and incarnationally in all aspects of my day-to-day routine.
2) I understand, or think I understand, the argument for asking saints to pray for you as in Sancte Augustine, ora pro nobis (et cervisiam). But I’m a little uneasy with the idea of bringing requests directly to saints, as some in the liturgical tradition seem to do (but do they really, or that just residual protestant propaganda floating around in my head?).
3) In a particularly Episcopalian (as opposed to RC) stance, I don’t feel that it is necessary to be canonized in order to be saint. On the other hand, I don’t want to be too inclusive: Sancte Elvis, ora pro NO-bis. There needs to be some sort of consensus (damn, I am wishy-washy!), some sort of standard. But all I know is that Dorothy Day and MLK are both as saintly as anyone from the Roman Missal, and deserve to be recognized as such even if their jawbones never do heal someone of the scurvy.
So, now that I’ve laid out my silliness (and blasphemy? and heresy? and idolatry?)for all to read, who’s going to tell me about their understanding of and relationship with the saints?
I
“One early evening in winter I was walking alone through the woods toward a town which I could already see and where I wanted to find lodging. Suddenly a big wolf came upon me and jumped at me. I had the woolen prayer rope which had belonged to my late starets in my hands, and in my attempt to defend myself with it the prayer rope slipped out of my hands and lodged around the neck of the wolf. The wolf jumped away from and got caught in a thorny bush with his hind legs and with the prayer rope on a branch of a dry tree. He tried desperately to free himself but was unable to because the prayer rope was choking him. With faith I blessed myself and went to free the wolf and especially to get my precious prayer rope, for I feared that the wolf would run away with it. And, sure enough, the moment I approached the wolf and touched the prayer rope, he broke it and ran away without leaving a trace. I thanked God for His help in retrieving my prayer rope and remembered my late starets. Then I happily reached the town and stopped at an inn to ask for lodging…
The clerk [of the inn] looked at me and asked, “Were you making prostrations so earnestly that you even broke your prayer rope?”
“No, it was not I who broke it; it was a wolf,” I said.
“Really? Do wolves pray?” asked the clerk.”
From The Way of a Pilgrim, trans. Helen Bacovcin
II
The famous Russian hermit and starets St. Seraphim of Sarov was one day visited at his hovel in the woods by an enormous bear. As his daily rations had recently arrived, the holy man, who was known to be a fastidious observer Christian hospitality, offered half of his food to his guest, . The next day the bear returned and St. Seraphim again shared his food. This happened throughout the winter and on into the spring. The bear prefered to eat at the saint’s table rather than hibernate. Soon, it was time for Great Lent. At that time, it was customary for the monk’s rations to be cut in half for those 40 days of fasting and repentance. So, when the bear continued to visit, St. Seraphim began giving the bear all of his rations, leaving nothing for himself. One day while this was going on, the Abbot visited St. Seraphim, and was astonished and frightened to discover a bear being fed and gently spoken to by the venerable old monk. When St. Seraphim explained that he had been giving his Lenten rations to the bear all along the Abbot got angry.
“You ought not to be doing this, and during Lent of all times!” he chided.
To which St. Seraphim replied, “But, Abbot, the poor bear does not know that it is Lent.”
What is your favorite story involving saints and animals?
Michaelmas, The Church Calendar & San Ysidro
September 28, 2009
Part I
Tomorrow (September 29) is Michaelmas, or the feast day of St. Michael and All Angels. In the whole church calendar/communion of the saints thing I have the hardest time with angels. Maybe because there is so much non-sense concerning angels in Christian pop-culture. There are at least some evangelicals who don’t know who St. Francis is, but whose house is littered with what can only be called icons of various guardian angels, whom they unabashedly venerate. Not that I have a problem with the theology of angels, or other people venerating angels per se, just that the practice doesn’t appeal to me. Give me your St. Laurences, your St. Francis’, and your St. Cyprians. These are people who mean something to me, who inspire me to be a better follower of Jesus. St. Michael and St. Uruel, not so much.
But as a purely cultural event, Michaelmas is fascinating as customs and legends are perpetuated tomorrow which date back at least to the Middle Ages. Eating the stubble goose, baking St. Michael’s Bannock, call me a nerd all you want, but I get into that sort of thing. And the church calendar is chalk full of opportunities to participate in deep-rooted cultural practices.
If you let them, these practices serve to re-enforce Christian discipline, and your committment to serve Christ. The St. Francis Day Blessing of the Beasts, All-Saints Day, Kingdom-tide, Advent, all serve as reminders of our shared history of redemption, and our shared commitment to follow in the footsteps of the saints, as well as reminders of particular practices and doctrines especially exemplified by certain saints (St. Francis’ care and appreciation for all Creation, St. Laurence’s care for the poor, St. Cyprian’s exemplification of Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies, etc.). The Church calendar with all its feasts and traditions is nothing more than a guide to medieval Incarnational living, making your faith an integral part of your everyday life, though simple things: meals, shared gifts, dances, carnivals, etc. What’s not to love about that?
Part II
And, while we’re on the subject of saints, why can’t I ask them to pray for me? I can call up my friend and ask him to pray for me, can’t I? Well, Christ’s redemptive work transcends time, uniting me with all my Christian sisters and brothers everywhere from every time, why can’t I ask some of them to pray for me as well? The answer: I can, and do.
As I go to the garden today, San Ysidro, pray for me, that my work is fruitful and glorifying to God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
