SAINTS AND SOULS

SAINTS AND SOULS

             One day, during a catechism class on All Saints’ Day, the teacher asked, “Who or what are the saints?”  One youngster stood up and happened to look at the stained glass window that had a saint portrayed, with the sunlight streaming through. The little fellow got a bright idea and answered, “The saints are those who let in the sunlight.” Splendid answer, the teacher thought. The saints let the light of Christ into our life by their prayer and example. But what happens when there is no sunlight, when the outside is dark and we are seated in a well lit church? That is when we send our light and prayer to our friends in the semi-darkness as they walk towards the pearly gates. They are grateful for our prayers and sacrifices that serve as so many points of light on their way to the perpetual light of the Heavenly Jerusalem. And as they march in they hear the words of the prophet Jeremiah, Chapter 31: “I have loved you. I will guard you as a shepherd guards his flock. They will come and sing for joy on Mt. Sion. I will turn their mourning into joy.”

During the Second World War, six million Jews, including many Catholics of Jewish descent, perished in the Nazi death camps. That number would have been greater, but happily, at least 500,000 were rescued or protected by ordinary people. They were quite ordinary people, in fact, for the most part, individualists  -  they did not usually do what society demanded, for example, to share in the almost universal hatred of the Jews. They just got into the habit of doing good, finding themselves responding first to a need and only second to the danger, and believing that the gift of goodness could be passed on.

That is the stuff of saints. “The Saints go marching in!”