Saints: Friends for the Journey

Before, during and after my swim across the Tiber, I often read and heard about Catholic idolatry and worship of the saints.  My views from childhood, through high school, college, and to where I am today, have gone through much development.  By the time I was in college, the story I knew from tid-bits and piece meal sources I can't recall, went basically like this: Christianity was fairly pure until Constantine (or sometime around there).  With Constantine (or sometime around there) the Church gained political power and therefore polluted Christianity with the paganism of the day.  One of the most effective ways to maintain order in the Empire was devised by leaders regarding the worship of saints.  The strategy was to take existing pagan idolatry of the Greco-Roman and Near-Eastern pantheons and replace them with the saints in a virtual and instantaneous switcheroo.   (In my imagination, I saw pagan statues with plaques titled "Apollo" and the next day a new label placed on top of the previous one titled "St. Michael".)  This paganization then continued for the next 1000 years (or something like that) until the Protestant Reformers pointed out the idolatry and freed the people from these pagan accretions.

Though more sophisticated arguments exist in this dialogue, I want to limit this post to an overview of the development of my view of the saints.  Forever grateful to my mother and Protestant upbringing,  I knew with conviction then (and still do as a Catholic) that I worshiped Jesus Christ, True Man and True God, and Him alone. Like all good Protestants, this lesson was impressed on me well; but like all Protestants, it was not the fullness of the truth that the Church is the family of God, and that "we believe in the communion of saints."


As a child my view of saints consisted of the the names of churches and a few passing comments here and there. I had little to no relationship or knowledge of the communion of saints. Growing up a good evangelical of the Billy Graham sort, I knew Catholics were Christians if they believed in Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. The saints as some theological topic was not exactly a dinner time conversation.  Sometimes, though, I noticed the Catholic friends I had growing up were a little different.  If I asked like any child about these (such as the crucifix) I was told an answer like "we're just different, but what matters is we believe in Jesus" or, in answer to the crucifix question, a specific one I remember, "we believe Jesus rose again".  Told to a playful and energetic boy who was moving on to play, those words barely made it to my ears.  Later, as a committed Christian in middle and high-school, when I asked or thought of Catholics devotion to the saints, I thought it a kind of weird, but honest mistake and my thoughts went no further. Still a boy, and still playing so hard, the words didn't really sink in. 

My time at an evangelical Bible college was the formative time of my Christian worldview for which I'm deeply grateful for. I studied the Bible and grew to love the Lord in a deeper, daily, and more personal way.  In regards to my position on the "Catholic Thing", I read a book in theology class called Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Disagreements. With a good friend, I found the Catechism of the Catholic Church and did a mini-study to disprove Catholicism.  Among the doctrines we "disproved" with Scripture was purgatory and the saints.  It was during this time the "Constantine" story came in, but it came alongside theological answers as well.  Those went something like this, with many verses quoted from Scripture: The devotion to saints distracts one from devotion to God. Only God deserves glory.  We pray to God and no one else.  Again, my heart was growing, I was learning more everyday and these answers satisfied me for the time being.  I did not consider becoming Catholic at this time, but hindsight is truly 20/20, because what happened during this time was the door of my heart cracked open to the truth of the Christ and His Church, the richness and depth of the Catholic Faith.

The years after college I spent teaching history and theology at a small evangelical high school.  These were the years, in hindsight, that I began my long swim across the Tiber.  These were the years I grew more in my faith. In regards to the ideas dancing around in my head about saints, it was my time as a teacher they began a new dance.  Reading C.S. Lewis deeper and more thoroughly (the most influential thinker in my life), as well as other thinkers, brought certain views such as purgatory, the saints, sacraments, justification and baptism, largely unexamined in my college years, into focus.  For example, I came to accept the idea of purgatory as a logical extension of Christ's atonement and our future glorification.  I was traveling through Reformed land, being nourished but never finding a home, yet finding many friends for the journey.  It was travel in this land I came to see the value of saints as heroes, often in stark contrast to the superficial celebrity and popular heroes of the youth culture I was ministering to.

Then, while traveling that road in the wood, it converged with a powerful experience. Without going into details, my principal at the time had a heart attack and passed away right before my eyes.  I literally had my hand under his neck and was asking him to wake up.  It was a very emotional and deep experience on many levels for me and the whole community.  After this intense experience it was natural for the students and staff to ask questions like: where is Bruce now? Can he hear us? Can he see us?  What is heaven like?

It was a particular student's question that made me realize what all Christians mean in the Apostles Creed when they say, "I believe in the communion of saints."  The student approached me, a little upset, and said, "I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Mr. Colburn."  Now, just to emphasize the context of my response, let me emphasize it was at an evangelical school with some fundamentalist parents.   In my examination of the issues mentioned above, I had multiple parents confront me.  It was emotional and a little scary, so I won't lie, it was nerve-racking in that environment to answer with what I really believed.

My answer to the student went something like this, and remember, I didn't practice any prayers to the saints or prayers for the dead at this time:  "Do you think if you asked God to tell Mr. Colburn 'goodbye', God would?"  The student, knowing and believing God is a loving father, whose eye is on the sparrow, who is tender and compassionate, who is the Shepherd who knows his sheep, answered an easy, "yes." In fact, as we (and other students) talked we couldn't think why God wouldn't do it?  It seemed a very natural, very human, very appropriate, very familial thing to do. Lewis comments on this in Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer and other works.  One thought offered by an insightful student, trying to work out what these new thoughts meant theologically, was that perhaps those in heaven won't care about us "down here" because they'll only care about God.  Fraught with problems, this response was quickly dismissed when one conceives of the Church as a family and the fact that loving God always means loving others more.   Bruce gave his heart and soul for the students at the school and God helped Bruce do his ministry as  principal.  Is not Bruce more alive now than before?  Is he still the same person? Since he is more alive and still the same person, wouldn't he care and love all those he loved on earth MORE in heaven?  Loving God is fruitful.  It always leads to loving more, loving others, loving deeper.  As I discussed these issues with the students I felt nervous and exhilarated.  Without trying to be subversive, this line of thinking happened multiple times.   I even encouraged those who were upset about this to talk to God about Bruce, to talk to God, as a friend, to go and tell Bruce "goodbye" or "Thank you" or something they wished they would've had a chance to say but didn't. 

Lastly, my first year teaching at St. John Bosco taught me another important aspect of the communion of saints.  The saints are our heroes, yes,but heroes can be distant figures up on a pedestal.  The saints are heroes but even more they are our friends.  Being a new Catholic, and not really comfortable or familiar with how to have a relationship with the saints, I listened to students talk and observed their practices.  A memorable moment came one lunch period.  Students were debating, not whether Brittany Spears or Beyonce is better, but which saint they liked best! Pulling in stories and miracles of many saints liked, they were told like family stories! This was impressive and beautiful.  These students KNEW these holy men and women, not in a far off distant place called heaven, but here and now in their lives.  The saints were relevant.  The saints were family.  The saints were friends for the journey.

In conclusion, what I came to see was the Catholic Faith has always taught and lived.  Saints are our family.   They are our friends.  Those who are in heaven care about what God cares about even more than we do; and God cares about saving souls, the good, the true, the beautiful.  So when Catholics pray to a saint to protect them, or to help on a journey, or even the for those who have departed this life, it is not idolatry it's being family.  It's believing in practice the Communion of Saints.  It's living out the idea that Christians (alive and dead) are a family.  It's not weird or abnormal to me now, it's natural and good.  It doesn't distract me from God, it glorifies our Heavenly Father as FATHER more.  It doesn't take away from Christ's glory, it shows His glory in others more.  We Catholics don't worship saints, we honor them.  We honor them by asking them to be part of our lives with God.  We honor them by remembering them and including them in our pilgrimage to God.  We ask them to pray for us because, like the good Christians you know and ask to pray for you, they want to.  The only difference is that their souls are glorified in heaven and they always want to pray, they always love it, and they will never forget when you ask them.

+Blessed John Henry Newman (my confirmation saint), Pray for Us!