Unspectacular Souls

How many souls are there in the church today? That sounds like a statistic that a priest would ask for. People can be overly fascinated with numbers. One priest told me that on his grave, when the time came, the epitaph could accurately read, “Here lies a man who truly counted.” He said, he knew there were other matrices that he ought to pay attention to, but that he was preoccupied with numbers. He is not alone, that is for sure. How many souls? The priest might focus on the number, God always focuses on the soul; every single soul.

I am writing this on All Souls Day, or the commemoration of sometimes called All Faithful Departed. When we say the word “saint” any number of meanings come into play. We might mean those people in the life of Jesus who have major feasts appointed to them. The Apostles chosen by Jesus, including Saint Matthias, were chosen later, bringing the number back to twelve. Saint Mary, the mother of our Lord, Jesus, his cousin, Saint John the Baptist, and the notable others in his life: Saint James of Jerusalem, and Saint Mary Magdalene, have Major Feasts. Others with Holy Days are Saint Paul, Saint Barnabas, and companion missionaries of theirs who wrote the Gospels, St. Mark, and Saint Luke. Let us remember the first martyr, the deacon, Saint Stephen. We remember Saint Joseph. I am not sure I got all the major feast folk named.

When we say “saint” we often also mean folks with so-called lesser feasts. These include the early martyrs Polycarp, Justin, Agnes, Ignatius, and Laurence, to name a few. We can list early church theological greats such as these eight, called doctors of the church: Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom of  Constantinople, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Gregory the Great of Rome, and Jerome of Bethlehem. We would mention great monastic figures such as Antony of Egypt, Benedict of Nursia, and Bernard of Clairvaux. Other great monastics are the Desert mothers or “ammas” of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria such as Syncletica, Theodora, Sara, Paula, and Eustochium. We surely would name intriguing mystics, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Dame Julian of Norwich, Francis of Assisi, and Catherine of Siena. We could name hundreds of others, including some of our favorites, Patrick, Nicholas, Lucia, and Clare. These are the notable saints that church history has held up to our attention.

The thing is, God knows all the stories. God knows the sanctifying power of grace, the power of love. A million years of liturgical calendars, each unique, would not hold all the names of souls God made saints. The stories did not make them saints so much as did God’s love for each soul. My friend, the old soul, Canon David Veal wrote about All Souls Day:

If we have trouble thinking of dear old Aunt Polly or Uncle John as being saints, now is the appropriate time to formally remember them. There are countless departed souls who were faithful Christians but who could hardly be regarded as exemplary “saints.”…This is a good time to remember the unspectacular children of God; those whose Christian witness may have been weak or faltering, but who are still very dear and important to God and us. (Excerpt from Saints Galore)

Dear reader, beloved soul: I am putting you on my list of saints because I know how much God loves you and the sanctifying effect that has. Isn’t grace amazing? Yes, in my book, you are a saint, only I must add, I think you are pretty spectacular too.