Watching a Brother Cadfael Mystery the other day, I was reminded of this story…
A young monk once went to see his superior: 'Father,' he said, 'I must leave the monastery because I clearly do not have a vocation to be a monk.' When the older monk asked why, the younger monk replied: 'In spite of daily resolutions to be good-tempered, chaste and sober, I keep on sinning. So I feel I am not suited to the monastic life.' The older monk looked at him with love and said: 'Brother, the monastic life is this: I rise up and I fall down, I rise up and I fall down, I rise up and I fall down.' The young monk stayed and persevered. (Christopher Jamison, OSB)
One can say that is also true of our lives, as we attempt to live as faithfully as possible.
I rise up. I fall down. I rise up. I fall down.
That is also true of the saints, those on our walls, in our hearts, those lifted up by the church and beyond, is that they stayed with their faith and persevered – when they fell down, they got back up by God’s grace. But they did more than that…
They listened. They acted for others in Jesus name.
As Jesus said in today’s Gospel reading from Luke, “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. Give to everyone who begs from you; Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Love. Do Good. Bless. Pray. Give.
And Jesus summed it up with the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Those saints we remember on this All Saints Sunday, steadfast in the faith, rising up after falling down, tried to live out the Golden Rule. For we remember the saints, not for their sake, but for ours. So that by God’s grace we may follow the saints in all “virtuous and godly living.”
“Until you have given up yourself to Christ you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most “natural” men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints,” wrote CS Lewis in Mere Christianity.
The self-absorbed tyrants and proud conquerors are nothing compared to the saints, for they are gloriously different because they hear the voice of God in their lives and it changed them. Life was no longer just about them, Francis gave up the family wealth, the readymade job, glory in war & life of the upper class, and chose instead to heed the voice of God and rebuild God’s church. It lead Dietrich Bonhoeffer to abandon the safety of the US to actively work against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Regime. Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, gave away her great wealth to the poor of her land, setting up hospitals and caring for those in need, even as the elite in the court did not like her extravagant almsgiving.
In our Anglican tradition, we remember Nicholas Ferrar. In 1625, he gave up his life in Parliament, his privileged life, he moved to Little Gidding, where he was joined by his brother and sister and their families and by his mother. They established together a community life of prayer, using The Book of Common Prayer, and a life of charitable works in the locality, including educating local children. He was ordained to the diaconate by William Laud the year they arrived. He was friends with the poet George Herbert. Nicolas wrote to his niece in 1631, ‘I purpose and hope by God’s grace to be to you not as a master but as a partner and fellow student.’ This indicates the depth and feeling of the community life Nicholas and his family strove to maintain. Despite difficulties with the Puritans, the community continued after the death of Nicholas on December 4, 1637. The memory of Nicholas Ferrar and his family has continued to inspire Christians to lives of prayer, service and community. (from Exciting Holiness, third edition, Canterbury Press, 1997, 2007.)
Each are gloriously different but each found Christ in their life. Again in Lewis words,
“Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Christ, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
How does one look for and follow Jesus like the saints once did?
The educator Verna Dozier put it this way, “become as nutty as he was. Throw all caution to the winds. Run contrary to every system, every status symbol that we have. I think that the followers of Jesus were considered mad by their time. See, we have a tendency to romanticize our saints, but we only do that after they’re dead.”
Our romanticism of them will have to wait. May we follow their examples, in their varied ways, living up to that Golden Rule, as we persevere in our faith through prayer, service and community. Amen.
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