Community Sermon after Lauds by Br. Barry
ALL SAINTS 2010.
‘Give us a place among your saints in glory that will
never end’.
While we are on this earth we are always in a place, a
location. The words just quoted from the Te Deum tell us that in the next life
too there are places, places occupied by the saints. On the surface of the
earth, there are many spots where the two places, a place on earth and a place
in heaven, correspond. These are the places of pilgrimage, holy places.
Firstly, the place of a saint’s mortal remains will
become a holy place, Assisi
for St. Francis and St. Clare, for example. If there are no mortal remains,
anywhere associated with a saint suffices: the place of his or her birth or somewhere
to do with their life’s work: Whithorn for St. Ninian, Monte Cassino or Subiaco
or Norcia for St. Benedict.Then there is the spot where a martyr was killed or
a place of apparition maybe.
A place may
also be linked to a saint not so much as a place of pilgrimage but as falling
under a saint’s protection and this applies of course to whole countries and
even whole continents. A clear illustration, on a slightly smaller scale than
continents, can be found not far away from here.
The small Borders town of Innerleithen, population two and a half
thousand, lies six miles east of Peebles. In the town and surrounding area
there are street names, landmarks, a school, a silver band and an hotel all
named after St. Ronan, a Celtic saint who died in the eighth century. The badge
of the local football team depicts St. Ronan sailing in his coracle, crook or
crozier in his hand. The nature of the link between the Saint and the district
in the local tradition is quite simple, he protects the town from the devil.
Saint Ronan |
Now, it is perfectly true that the connection between
the town and the saint was formalised or firmed up by the novel of Sir Walter
Scott entitled ‘St. Ronan’s Well’. But the tradition was already there in his
childhood towards the end of the eighteenth century and this, remember, over
two hundred years after the Reformation. Such is the strength of the bonds
forged between saints and places.
For many
people, a monastery can be one of those places of pilgrimage or at least a holy
place or a special place. Yet, you will not necessarily find saints in a
monastery. All the same, a monastery of any duration whatever will have built
up a momentum of prayer through the years so as to make an atmosphere of
prayer. All the monastery’s prayer is prayer seeking its place in heaven and if
the monastery is one of those places especially open to grace then this must be
due in part to the influence of its own saints – its patrons, the founder of
its Order maybe, the author of its Rule.
So this little corner on the face of the globe, here
on the northern slopes of the Lammermuir hills, has a direct link with that
place in heaven occupied by St. Mary; with St. Aelred’s place in glory, with
the places of Ss. Robert, Alberic and Stephen and with that of St. Benedict.
The monk in his monastery has found his place on
earth, according to his vow of stability. From there he might catch a glimpse
from time to time of his place in heaven. It is not certain that he will get
there but we live in hope.
That liturgical expert, Dom Prosper Gueranger wrote of
today, ‘ the West celebrates at the close of the year a feast which represents
the gathering of the harvest into our heavenly Father’s granary’.
The feast of
All Saints, occurring as it does at the end of the autumn season and the
beginning of winter, replaced in this part of the world the ancient pagan feast
of Samhain. This was a feast of fire and light to protect the people from the
increasing dark and cold and the powers of death that lurked behind them.
During Samhain, the veil separating this world from the Otherworld became very
thin. It is this festival that lies behind the customs of Halloween, Bonfire
Night and November as the month of the dead.
The light of All Hallows, however, comes from the fire
of the Easter Vigil and the light of the Paschal candle. It is the light of
Christ reflected by the saints. There is another link with Easter night. The
Exultet describes how on Easter night ‘ heaven is wedded to earth’. On All
Saints too, heaven and earth come very close, caused by the intercession of all
the saints for believers and for non–believers. The connection between a
particular spot on earth with a particular saint and his or her place in
heaven, today becomes a meeting of the whole earth with all of heaven.
Autumn 2010 Lothians Forth & Fife |
No comments:
Post a Comment