Lives of the Saints
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Lives of the Saints

Richard P. McBrien

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eBook - ePub

Lives of the Saints

Richard P. McBrien

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This pocket edition of Richard McBrien's Lives of the Saints is the perfect concise, handy reference for scholars, students, and general readers.

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Publisher
HarperOne
Year
2015
ISBN
9780062467805
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PART I

WHO IS A SAINT?

THE VENERATION OF SAINTS HAS BEEN AN INTEGRAL PART OF the Church’s life practically ever since the death of its first martyr, Stephen [December 26].1 Most Christians (and many non-Christians as well) are named after saints, as are some major and mid-sized cities in the United States, for example, St. Louis, St. Augustine, St. Paul, San Francisco, San Jose, San Juan, Santa Anna, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, and San Antonio. The most famous golf course in the world is named after St. Andrew [November 30], and one of the world’s most beloved mythical characters, Santa Claus, after St. Nicholas [December 6].
In 1955, however, Karl Rahner (d. 1984), the leading Catholic theologian of the twentieth century, noted the absence of any serious treatment of the saints in contemporary theology. “It is a strange thing,” he wrote, “but if one takes a glance at an average modern dogmatic theology, one will find it necessary to look in a great many different places for the doctrine of the Saints of the holy Church and of their veneration.”2 Twenty-five years later, the situation remained essentially unchanged. Lawrence Cunningham, a well-established expert on the saints and spirituality, found no evidence in 1980 “that theologians are doing much serious reflection on the relevance or even the meaning of the saint in the Christian tradition.”3
The saints were nevertheless an important part of the devotional life of Catholics during this period. Parents were carefully instructed to choose a saint’s name for their newborn infants; otherwise, the priest would not baptize them. Boys and girls were expected to select a saint’s name for Confirmation. Catholics of all ages routinely prayed to St. Anthony of Padua [June 13] to find lost articles or to St. Jude [October 28] in the face of seemingly hopeless situations. There were popular novenas to St. Anne [July 26], the Little Flower (St. Theresa of the Child Jesus) [October 1], the Miraculous Medal (a devotion promoted by St. Catherine LabourĂ© [November 28]), and St. Jude. Children and adults alike wore medals imprinted with the images of St. Joseph [March 19], St. Benedict of Nursia [July 11], and St. Christopher [July 25]. The last was such a popular item in automobiles that it was a matter of widespread concern, even anxiety, for many Catholics (and some non-Catholics too) when Christopher was dropped from the liturgical calendar in 1969. Saints were also the subjects of colorful stained-glass windows in churches and of statues, medieval and modern. National or ethnic parishes were readily identified by their patron saints, for example, Anne (French), Anthony of Padua (Italian), Boniface [June 5] (German), Casimir [March 4] (Lithuanian or Polish), Cyril and Methodius [February 14] (Polish), Martin de Porres [November 3] (African American), Our Lady of Guadalupe [December 12] (Hispanic), Our Lady of Mount Carmel [July 16] (Italian), and Stanislaus [April 11] (Polish).
Since 1980 the saints and spirituality have moved closer to the center of theological as well as devotional attention.4 The reasons vary and are perhaps too complex to pinpoint. However, the increased interest in narrative and storytelling and the heightened value of experience as a locus (Lat., “source”) of theological understanding would have to be counted among the leading factors.5 It may also be a matter of the delayed impact of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which clearly shifted the emphasis from the saints as miracle workers to the saints as models.6 “No devotion to the saints is more acceptable to God,” the great Christian humanist Erasmus [see July 12] once wrote, “than the imitation of their virtues. . . . Do you want to honor St. Francis? Then give away your wealth to the poor, restrain your evil impulses, and see in everyone you meet the image of Christ.”7

The Saints as “Holy Ones”

Saints are holy people. Because God alone is holy, to be a saint is to participate in, and to be an image of, the holiness of God. “Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy” (Lev. 19:2). Persons, however, cannot make themselves holy. Only God can do that. The biblical notion of holiness, rooted in the Old Testament, involves a “being set apart” by God from what is profane in order to belong in a new and special way to God. This setting apart, or consecration, can apply not only to persons, such as priests and religious, but also to places, like a temple or land, or to things, like commandments or a chalice, or to communities, like Israel (“a holy nation” [Exod. 19:6]) or the Church (“one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church”).8
For Jesus, nothing is more precious than the Kingdom, or Reign, of God, which is the healing and renewing power and presence of God on our behalf. “Instead, seek his kingdom, and these other things will be given you besides” (Luke 12:31). Like a person who finds a hidden treasure in a field or a merchant who discovers a precious pearl, one must be prepared to give up everything else in order to possess the Kingdom (Matt. 13:44–46). But it is promised only to those with a certain outlook and way of life, as expressed in the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3–12), and to those who see and respond to Christ in the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the homeless, and the prisoner (Matt. 25:31–46). To the scribe who grasped the meaning of the two great commandments—love of God and of neighbor—Jesus said: “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34). For Jesus, the Reign of God—and, therefore, a life of holiness—is open in principle to everyone.
To share in the holiness of God is to share in the very life of God. Holiness, therefore, is a state of being that is the practical equivalent of grace, God’s self-gift. To be in the “state of grace” is to be permeated and transformed by the presence of God. Saints are persons in whom the grace of God, won for us by Christ, has fully triumphed over sin— which is not to say that the saints were without sin. Jesus alone was without sin (John 8:46; 14:30; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:22; Heb. 4:15), and only he could be called “the Holy One of God” (John 6:69).
The term “holy” (Gk. hagios) was applied to the disciples of Christ even during their earthly lives. First Peter 1:15–16 explicitly cites Leviticus 11:44 (“. . . you shall make and keep yourselves holy, because I am holy”) and 19:2 (“Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy”) and applies these texts to Christians. St. Paul [June 29] addresses those to whom he writes as “holy ones” (Rom. 1:7; 15:25; 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Phil. 1:1). Gradually the “holy ones” became more commonly referred to as the “saints.”

Categories of Saints

In the Catholic tradition, there are at least four possible applications of the word “saints”: (1) all those who have been sanctified, or made holy, by the grace of Christ, whether they are living or dead, Catholic or non-Catholic, Christian or non-Christian, people of explicit religious faith or none; (2) those who, having been sanctified by Christ on earth, have entered into the joy of eternal life; (3) biblical figures in the time before Christ who lived by the Spirit of God and who became luminous examples of holiness; and (4) those whom the Church, either through popular acclaim or formal canonization, has declared to be members of the Church triumphant (i.e., those already in the company of God, the angels, and the saints in heaven) and who are commemorated and invoked in the Church’s public worship and in private prayer.9
The Church attests to that broadly inclusive tradition each year in its celebration of the feast of All Saints [November 1]. Grace, which is the sanctifying presence of God in an individual person, is available to everyone. Every human person is oriented toward God and possesses the radical capacity to receive the grace of God. Human existence, therefore, is graced existence. We are alive by a principle, namely, the grace of God, that transcends us. We are fully human, and yet, by the grace of God, we have the capacity to become more than that, namely, to become partakers of the divine life itself and to share ultimately in God’s eternal glory.10 To participate in God’s grace and glory is to be a saint in the fullest sense of the word.
Given the broader, catholic understanding of sanctity, this book acknowledges the witness to sanctity of (1) those Catholics who have not yet either been popularly acclaimed or formally canonized, such as Dorothy Day [November 29], Mother Teresa of Calcutta [September 5], and Archbishop Oscar Romero, of El Salvador [March 24]; (2) non-Catholic Christians whose sanctity has been recognized and liturgically celebrated by other churches, such as the seventeenth-century Anglican priest-poets George Herbert [February 27] and John Donne [March 31], the fourteenth-century abbot Sergius of Radonezh [September 25], regarded by some as the Francis of Assisi [October 4] of Russian Orthodoxy, and the German Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer [April 9], executed by the Nazis toward the end of World War II; (3) Jews, such as the ancient prophets of Israel and a twentieth-century prophet who wrote eloquently about them, the Hasidic rabbi Abraham Heschel [December 23]; and (4) other non-Christians, such as the Hindu holy man of India, Mohandas Gandhi [January 30].11 The principal focus of the book, however, remains on those to whom the title “saint” has traditionally applied: (5) those who were acclaimed as saints within the undivided Church of the first Christian millennium, such as Peter and Paul [June 29], Agnes [January 21] and Agatha [February 5], and (6) those who were formally canonized by the Catholic Church during the second Christian millennium, such as Catherine of Siena [April 29] and Francis Xavier [December 3], and those who are now among the canonized saints of the third Christian millennium, such as Mother Katharine Drexel [March 3].

Types of Christian Saints

In the beginning, Jesus’ disciples were considered “saints” and were addressed as such by St. Paul in his Letters, or Epistles, to the various churches of the first century. The first saints in a more restricted sense of the word were the martyrs, who had died for the faith and whose reward was believed to have been immediate transition to eternal life with Christ. The earliest mention of a memorial cult at the burial site of a martyr is in the Martyrdom of Polycarp (18:1–3), written in the middle of the second century. The cult involved veneration of the site, pilgrimages to it, adoption of the martyr as the patron saint of the local church or town, and a belief in the martyr’s power to perform miracles on behalf of the living.12 From the reign of Constantine in the early fourth century and with the end of the intermittent periods of persecution, the cult of saints (the so-called red martyrs) was extended to confessors (the so-called white martyrs, and not to be confused with priests who administer the sacrament of Penance), namely, those who suffered imprisonment, torture, expropriation of property, hard labor, and/or exile for the faith but who did not directly suffer the martyrdom of death; to ascetics, especially those, such as monks, hermits, and holy women who lived a life of celibacy or virginity;13 to wise teachers, including theologians and spiritual writers; to pastorally effective church leaders, including bishops, outstanding members of the diocesan and religious clergy, and the founders and foundresses of religious orders; and to those who cared for the sick and the poor.14

The Veneration of Saints

A Brief History

The two kinds of martyrs—“red” and “white” alike—were honored on the anniversary of their deaths, as the day of their birth to a new life in heaven. Churches were named after them and placed under their patronage. Special prayers to them were added to the Mass and readings about them were inserted into the Liturgy of the Hours, or Divine Office. Eastern churches venerated their images, while Western churches venerated their relics.15 Biographies of various saints—some historically reliable and others less so or not at all—were composed and became more familiar to people than the Scriptures themselves, contributing to the shaping the Catholic imagination of the Middle Ages.
Although Augustine [August 28] warned the faithful in Hippo to “worship God alone,” he also exhorted them to “honor the saints,” and specifically the martyrs (Sermo 273.9). He was only confirming what was already a common feature of worship and devotional life in North Africa at the time (early fifth century). However, by the end of the patristic era (ca. eighth century) it was a constant challenge for church leaders and theologians to keep the veneration of saints, angels, and the Blessed Virgin Mary in line with the central truth of Christian faith: that Jesus Christ is the one Mediator between God and humanity (1 Tim. 2:5). In 787 the Second Council of Nicaea insisted that God alone is worthy of our worship and adoration (Gk. latria); by contrast, the saints are to be given our respect and honor (Gk. dulia). Later theology proposed that Mary, however, is worthy of hyperdulia, a “higher” form of veneration, but far short of adoration or worship.16
In the West, pilgrimages to the shrines of particular saints were matters of local pride and profit. The cult of relics—many of which were sold, traded, falsified, stolen, and fought over—became increasingly important after the fall of the Roman Empire, especially in northern Europe, because many areas did not have their own local martyrs and shrines. The practice of the “translation,” or transfer, of relics from tombs to churches throughout the Christian world became more common at this time, when the Church was encouraging the veneration of relics among the newly evangelized in order to help solidify their faith and to prevent any relapse into the worship of idols. Popes were often generous with the relics of saints buried in Roman cemeteries. In the twelfth century the Crusaders expropriated some of the East’s most revered relics and took them back to various churches in the West, thereby enhancing the prestige of those churches.
Monastic piety also gave prominence to saints as founders and foundresses, patrons and patronesses, and intercessors and protectors. The sanctoral cycle in the liturgy grew rapidly. Local bishops gradually took control of the process from the fifth century. They would not allow a saint’s name to be added to the calendar unless they were given a written account of the candidate’s life (Lat. vita) and miracles. These accounts were read aloud in the presence of the bishop.17 Upon approval of the bishop or local synod, the body was exhumed and transferred to an altar, an act that was the equivalent of canonization. The saint was assigned a feast day and the name was added to the local calendar. As the veneration of certain saints spread beyond the limits of a given diocese or country and also beyond the control of the local bishops and abbots, efforts were made to contain abuses, especially in the proliferation of shrines, relics, and devotional practices. The papacy eventually intervened, but the first papal canonization did not take place until 993, when Ulrich of Augsburg [July 4] was formally proclaimed a saint by Pope John XV. Almost two hundred years later (ca. 1170) Pope Alexander III, in a letter to the king of Sweden, insisted that no one should be venerated as a saint without the authority of the church of Rome. When this letter was included in the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX in 1234, it became part of the general law of the Church in the West, namely, that only the pope could canonize ...

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