Saints Now
November 3rd, 2009 Posted in writing | Comments Off on Saints NowI don’t think I’m alone in having grown up thinking that the pre-requisite for being a saint was to be dead. But, really, what makes a saint isn’t being dead but being alive.
“Saints” is what Paul called the members of the churches to whom he wrote his epistles. They were the “holy ones” (the “saints”) of God, whose own holiness causes him to fully enter our world and our history.
And being holy doesn’t mean being perfect, either. Though Matthew says that Jesus told his followers to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” Luke says that he told us, “be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.”
Saints, in other words, are part of this world, living (through God’s grace) with engaged and compassionate hearts. And when their bodies die, our faith tells us they themselves are still alive, praying for us and for the world.