I pray that you,
being rooted and firmly established
being rooted and firmly established
in love,
may be able to comprehend
may be able to comprehend
with all the saints
what is the length and width,
height and depth of God’s love.
+ Ephesians 3:17b-18
what is the length and width,
height and depth of God’s love.
+ Ephesians 3:17b-18
Little by little, the loved person becomes a loving person. + Frederick Buechner This post is a reflection on what the journey to being saintly is often like, which ultimately involves receiving the love of God, calling on Jesus as Lord of love, and trusting that the love of the Spirit will transform you from unloved to loved as God the Father transfers you from the domain of darkness to His Kingdom of light. (Give) thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of the Son He loves. + Colossians 1:12-13 My previous All Saint's Day post also utilized artwork to consider the journey of sinners to become more like Jesus. This one does as well (see Beauty in the Beast below), along with the artistry of the Bible's and Frederick Buechner's words (see also "Mad as a Hatter" and "Childlike Faith" for more from Buechner), to remind us that: God brings His children home, once beasts of humanity who reveal the beauty of His grace. You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household. + Ephesians 2:19 |
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| Beauty and the Beast by Dimklad |
Sanctification:
Beauty in the Beast
In "Beauty and the Beast,"
In "Beauty and the Beast,"
it is only when the Beast discovers
that Beauty really loves him
in all his ugliness that
he himself becomes beautiful.
In the experience of Saint Paul,
it is only when we discover
that God really loves us
in all our unloveliness that
we ourselves start to become godlike.
Paul's word for this gradual transformation
of a sow's ear into a silk purse
is sanctification,
and he sees it as the second stage
in the process of salvation.
Being sanctified is a long and painful stage
because with part of themselves
sinners prefer their sin,
just as with part of himself
the Beast prefers
his glistening snout and curved tusks.
Many drop out
with the job hardly more than begun,
and among those who stay with it
there are few if any
who don't drag their feet most of the way.
But little by little—
less by taking pains than by taking it easy
—the forgiven person
starts to become a forgiving person,
the healed person
to become a healing person,
the loved person
to become a loving person.
God does most of it.
The end of the process,
Paul says,
is eternal life.
+ Frederick Buechner
Bonus Saint Reflections
The celebrity demands,
"Look at me!"
The saint whispers,
"Look at God."
The celebrity says,
"Try to be like me,
but you'll never be like me."
The saint says,
"Why would anyone want to be like me?
Who has God made you?"
The celebrity is ever ascending,
climbing the tower of Babel
to the double-platinum throne.
The saint is ever descending,
saying, "Please have my seat, I insist."
The celebrity offers you everything
you want but can never have.
The saint offers you the thing you fear
but will redeem your soul.
"Look at me!"
The saint whispers,
"Look at God."
The celebrity says,
"Try to be like me,
but you'll never be like me."
The saint says,
"Why would anyone want to be like me?
Who has God made you?"
The celebrity is ever ascending,
climbing the tower of Babel
to the double-platinum throne.
The saint is ever descending,
saying, "Please have my seat, I insist."
The celebrity offers you everything
you want but can never have.
The saint offers you the thing you fear
but will redeem your soul.
The celebrity is a Ferrari
screaming down the highway
with music blaring.
The saint is the freshwater creek
beside the highway
that almost nobody ever notices
and is nearly impossible to hear
over the roar of traffic.
Yet the water murmurs
as it wanders over stones
and around oak roots.
It is not silent.
screaming down the highway
with music blaring.
The saint is the freshwater creek
beside the highway
that almost nobody ever notices
and is nearly impossible to hear
over the roar of traffic.
Yet the water murmurs
as it wanders over stones
and around oak roots.
It is not silent.
+ Ben Lansing & D.J. Marotta
Don't be afraid of quiet.
Don't be afraid of solitude.
The saints are cheering you on,
remember,
so we're never alone that way.
We are surrounded by hints of
the Kingdom of Heaven.
Persist,
but in a new way.
Surrender.
It's no longer effort
that will take you there,
but God's grace.
One of the ways we can practice
being saintly is to notice that grace.
And the more we abide in it
the more folks around us start to notice.
This is one of the attributes
that used to define the saints;
you glimpse more of
around them.
They are literally an eye-opener.
They are literally an eye-opener.
A saint has had the saliva and dirt of ...
wipe the blindness from their eye.
+ Martin Shaw
As we move into this Feast of All Saints, I remember a story of a self-righteous parishioner, who was also something of a cynic, who chided the elder pastor because of the church's diminished congregation. “Not many in church today, as usual. Not many at all.” The wizened minister patted the gruff man on the shoulder. “You are wrong, my friend.
There were thousands
at church this morning.
Thousands and thousands
and tens of thousands.”
On the Feast of All Saints, we especially remember our confession, how we believe (even if we don’t know exactly what the words mean) in the communion of saints. Every human, alive or dead, faithful or scoundrel, who is bound together in Jesus Christ is a saint—and all of us (rich and poor, democrat and republican) are woven together, whether we like it or not.
But there are also particular people we recognize as a saint, not cherub-faced super-mortals but rather ones who over a lifetime have demonstrated for us what it can look like when our passions and longings are invigorated by the fire of divine love.
These saints are not ones
who’ve shed their humanity
but just the opposite
have learned what it is to live
more truly human,
how to be more alive and more awake
and more their truest selves.
“The uniqueness of saints
is not that they are uniquely whole
but simply that they are really ‘awake,’
acutely aware of ‘the glorious and troubling
difference of God.’”
+ Ben Myers
+ Ben Myers
“A saint is one who exaggerates
what the world neglects.”
+ G.K. Chesterton
The saints, then, are immersed in life. And this is true even—maybe especially—with those no longer with us. When we pray, we pray with all the saints, every grandmother and every child and every martyr and every crotchety neighbor, who has ever been united by the Spirit into this grand, mysterious, never-ending dance.
For many centuries, most Christians worshiped in little stone or thatch or clapboard chapels attached to a churchyard dotted by grave markers reminding us we worship among generations of the ancients. Every Sunday, you would walk past the burial plots of friends and parents and great-great-grandparents, aware of remnants of their presence while you answered the call to prayer. Even now, in worship we are often encircled by stained glass filled with images of those who are part of our story, the cloud of witnesses who are somehow present with us in Jesus as we sing and laugh and worry and cling to faith.
+ Winn Collier
what the world neglects.”
+ G.K. Chesterton
The saints, then, are immersed in life. And this is true even—maybe especially—with those no longer with us. When we pray, we pray with all the saints, every grandmother and every child and every martyr and every crotchety neighbor, who has ever been united by the Spirit into this grand, mysterious, never-ending dance.
For many centuries, most Christians worshiped in little stone or thatch or clapboard chapels attached to a churchyard dotted by grave markers reminding us we worship among generations of the ancients. Every Sunday, you would walk past the burial plots of friends and parents and great-great-grandparents, aware of remnants of their presence while you answered the call to prayer. Even now, in worship we are often encircled by stained glass filled with images of those who are part of our story, the cloud of witnesses who are somehow present with us in Jesus as we sing and laugh and worry and cling to faith.
+ Winn Collier
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| "Grace and Mercy" by Jess Ray |
Bonus Song for a Saint
Jess Ray
2020 A.D.
For every time I make the choice
To love the sound of my own voice,
Another’s wants, another’s needs,
I trample underneath my feet.
For every time I boldly say
That I’m the one who knows the way,
And I come down with a heavy hand
And withhold my understanding.
I know now, more than ever,
I know now, more than ever,
I know now, more than ever,
I know now ...
That I am still so in need of grace and mercy.
I am still so in need of grace and mercy.
For every time that I hold up
My life against another one
And I envy what I cannot have
And curse what I don’t understand.
Oh on this darkness, shine a light.
Remind me once again that ...
(Chorus)
(Chorus)
I’d like to think that I’m older now
And surely I must have grown out of this.
I’d like to reach some higher ground
But what a sad life to live without
Grace and mercy, grace and mercy ...
(Chorus)
Bonus Book Recommendations:
More Saints Posts:
Many blessings of peace and presence,
Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan
