Leaning Into the Communion of Saints

I have been blessed with a wonderful family of siblings.  There are six of us -- 2 attorneys, 1 dentist, 2 teachers, and a social worker/landscaper.  All of us love the outdoors, animals, and growing things.  None of us spends much time communicating with the others on a regular basis, but still, we "lean into" one another in some indefinable way.  My mother used to say that we could have our own self-sufficient commune and survive very well.  Add in the next 2 generations, and we probably have all we need for survival in fact.  We know for sure that we have one another's backs and unwavering support at all times.

The deeper I grow in my faith, I realize that the Catholic doctrine of the Communion of Saints is much like my family.  In fact, I was once challenged by a neighbor who clearly thought "praying to the saints" was idolatry, and I actually felt sorry for her, that she could not experience the same kind of support I experience from my friends, the saints.  Not all the "saints" are formally canonized; I have had friends whose lives were closely intertwined with mine and who have now passed to the other side.  I still consider them friends and now saints who still support me in spirit.  St. Therese said before her death, "I will spend my heaven doing good upon earth."  What a lovely way to think about those who have gone before us --- that they are spending their heaven doing good upon earth!

Why should those who have spent their lives passionately loving others cease to care about those they love when they die?  If we on earth, limited as we are, can support one another in spiritual ways, why not those who have more resources now without limitation?  Recently our deacon went to the hospital experiencing a lot of pain.  Of course, word went out immediately that he needed prayer.  Later he told me that while he was in the emergency room, he suddenly began to feel the effects of all that prayer.  I believe that even my Baptist neighbors who scorn the Communion of Saints doctrine would whole-heartedly embrace the belief that our deacon did indeed experience the support of prayer -- the more people praying, the greater the spiritual force.

I like the picture of heaven painted in Hebrews 12:22:  You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom, and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words, so that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded....But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God.  You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.  You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.....(Chap. 13)...Keep on loving each other as brothers...Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

The picture of the church is one of family of one blood, of one holy DNA, loving and supporting one another because of the one spirit that enfolds them -- the Spirit of Jesus Christ.  Why should death cease the love and support that binds them?  If anything, I would think the spiritual bonds would increase.  And the passion we experience for others, for the earth, for animals and growing things should not diminish with death; we have spent a lifetime cultivating these passions.  Is that formation to be entirely lost upon our deaths?

I draw so much strength and inspiration and support from my family and from my friends, both living and dead.  So I lean into the Communion of Saints, whether they exist in heaven or on earth.

Our Father

Some years ago, a friend, infected by the feminist movement of the 70's, asked me, "Why do we call God 'Father'?"  At the time, I gave her a smart-alec answer:  Why don't you ask Him yourself?  I think I may have been thinking that she would not accept my answer anyway, and so I would refer her to the Source.  (The-rage-of-the-moment was to refer to God as "He/she; Mother/Father," etc.)

As we(I) grow in age, however, wisdom tends to creep in along with a little humility, and looking back on my answer, I now feel that her question deserves an answer, however feeble and inadequate it may be.  And so, Yvette, here is my answer to your question:

First of all, John gives us a clue in his prologue to the Gospel:  No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.  How lovely, that the primary mission of Jesus is to make the Father known.

And reflecting on the implications of this statement now, I realize that, after reading and hearing many testimonies from Iranians or Muslims, the primary difference between Allah and the God of Jesus Christ is that they do not know God as "Father."  They know Him as Creator, as Ruler, as Law-Giver, as Supreme Watcher-of-Mankind, as Doler-Out-of-Reward-and-Punishment -----but they cannot approach Him as "Father."  That revelation comes exclusively through knowledge of Jesus Christ.  All of John's Gospel reflects Jesus' own relationship to His Father, the same relationship He wants us and invites us to enjoy.

The last words of Jesus at the last supper were, I have called you friends, for everything I learned from my Father, I have made known to you.....though the world does not know You, I know You, and I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.....I have revealed Your Name to those whom you gave me out of the world.

What is the "Name" Jesus has revealed to those given to Him by the Father?  What is the "Name" revealed solely by Jesus Christ to His disciples?  After rising from the dead, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, "Go to my brothers and tell them, I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

What has been accomplished by the mission of Jesus is the revelation of the family of God.  As He was/is in the bosom of the Father, so are we:  His Father is our Father.  We belong in the same place that He occupies in heaven.  We are one with and in Him.  We all have the same DNA now with the Holy Trinity -- the family of God.  No longer separated from Him and from one another by a whole host of reasons, opinions, differences, hostilities, rages-of-the-moment, but One with one another and with the Father.

No other religion the world has ever seen has made known the Father and invited us into His embrace as has Jesus Christ.  I wish I could explain it better, but anyone who wishes to enter into that relationship might start with a slow, meditative reading and re-reading of the Gospel of John.

Praying with Scripture

Continuing through the Gospel of John as the basis for prayer, we find Jesus speaking with the Samaritan woman in Chapter 4:  Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Of course, if we are that woman, we ask with her, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."  What satisfies our continuing thirst? Recognition? Scholarship? Television? Power? Wealth?  Anything we can think of eventually runs out and we have to return to the source once again, often finding that it has grown stale and fails to satisfy us.  Jeremiah lamented in God's name the condition of mankind: 

My people have committed two sins:

They have forsaken me,

the spring of living water, 

and have dug their own cisterns,

broken cisterns that cannot hold water (2:13).

Now why go to Egypt 

to drink water from the Shihor?

And why go to Assyria

to drink water from the River? (2:18)

....I provide water in the desert

and streams in the wasteland,

to give drink to my people, my chosen,

the people I formed for myself

that they may proclaim my praise (Isiah 43:20-21).

I will pour water on the thirsty land,

and streams on the dry ground;

I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,

and my blessing on your descendants (Is. 44:3).

From the first page of the Old Testament to the last page of Revelation, we find water associated with blessing and blessing with water.  In fact, in Hebrew, the two words are separated by one vowel.  Berakah means "blessing," and berekah means "pool/spring of water where camels drink." So if we could hear the last verse above spoken in Hebrew, we would hear berekah on the thirsty land, and berakah on your descendants, the sound of the words reinforcing the meaning.

Probably one of the best visual representations of this Biblical theology was the movie The Lion King; under an unjust ruler, the land dries up and fails to produce.  Under a just king, the land bursts forth in plenty for everyone. When Jesus cries, "I thirst!" from the cross, all the moisture in His body has dried up from loss of blood and evaporation -- He has become our sin and taken on our thirst:

I am poured out like water, 

and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart has turned to wax;

it has melted away within me.

My strength is dried up like a potshard,

and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;

I am laid in the dust of death (Ps. 22).

Returning to the Gospel of John, Jesus not only offers a "spring" of living water to the Samaritan woman, but "on the last and greatest day of the feast" (commemorating God's gift of water to the Israelites in the desert), Jesus stands up in the Temple and says, If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me...streams of living water will flow from within him."

Now he says not a "spring" of living water (for personal use) but now "streams" of living water (flowing out from the believer to others).  By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive (Jn. 7:38).

Lord, give us this living water!

How, then, Should We Pray?

Someone once asked me, "Who is this God you are praying to?"  A wonderful question, since Jesus said, This is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent (Jn. 17:3).

If we do not know the One to Whom we pray, our prayers might seem to reach nowhere.  How often have we said of someone we know, "It's like talking to a wall!"  Our conversation has no entrance point, for we do not really know the person we address, nor does he apparently know us.  So how on earth does one get to know God?

One of my favorite entry points into prayer is to take the words of Scripture, wherein God reveals Himself to us, and say them back to the Divine Personality.  The Old Testament is rich in images of God, but I will leave that mine for another day in favor of treasure closer to the surface.  The Book of John is so rich in revelation of who Jesus is, so full of "I Am" statements that it is easy for a beginner in prayer to enter into the Divine Presence.

We do not even have to advance beyond the Prologue to the Gospel to begin to see Who Jesus is.  John lived many years beyond the appearance of the synoptic Gospels and could assume that everyone knew the basic historic facts about Jesus Christ.  In his office of prayer and contemplation, John was now free to see more deeply into the Presence of Christ in the world:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning....

And so we, learning to pray, say to the One to Whom we pray: You, O Lord, are the Word.....the Word who was with God from the beginning, the Word who is God....through you all things were made; without you, nothing was made that has been made.  ..... In You is life, and Your Life is the light of man.  ....You are the light shining in the darkness, and the darkness has never overcome Your Life.

When St. Augustine cried, "O Beauty ever ancient! O Beauty ever new!," he knew the One to Whom he was praying.  If we take the words of Scripture as our address to our God, we come to know Him intimately.....from the fullness of Your grace, we have all received one blessing after another! (Jn. 1:16).  Now we are learning to worship the One we know.  Soon, then, our praise will arise spontaneously because once we prime the pump, the Holy Spirit will take over and lead us, showing us even greater things.