All Saints

With this past Sunday being All Saints Day, now is a good time to recommend a blog devoted to telling the stories of the saints of the church.

The blog is called Telling the Stories That Matter.  It has enriched my lifeover the past few months, as I have read the stories of saints from all over the world and throughout history.

Some of these stories I've heard before, while others are new to me.  Either way, though, all are insightful and provide concrete examples of faithful living.  And that's just what we need from the saints, examples of how to live more faithfully.  The saints are role models who enlarge our understanding of how to live our lives.

As Hauerwas and Willimon note in Resident Aliens, "One role of the saints is to present us with a wider array of ethical possibilities than we would have had if left to our own devices" (102).  What this means is that we often get stuck in doing what we always do.  When this happens, the saints are there to provide examples that break the mold of the status quo.  They provide new insights, or old insights forgotten.  And they show us how to make it through tough times.

We discussed this on Sunday.  What a resource we have in the older members of our congregation!  This is not the first financial crisis they've been in, this is not the first loved one they've lost--so, let's listen to the stories of how they made it through before.

However, maybe the old ways don't always work.  When that's the case, the older members can look to us for new ways to approach situations, or simply ways to approach new situations, for there are some areas in which younger generations have more experience.

In short, let us look to each other, young and old.  And let us not forget the grand tapestry that is our ancestry, those saints who have gone before us.  This is what the Communion of Saints (or Communio Sanctorum) is all about.