A cross by the roadside. PIXABAY
‘Surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…”
How the saints pray for us and how we can follow their example
BY DEBORAH HOPKINS, SPECIAL TO THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC
Next time that you travel a county road or a highway, take notice of the crosses. You know the ones, the roadside memorials. Every cross represents a life that was lost, lost very near that spot where the cross was erected. Someone wanted that life lost to be remembered, to keep a reminder of that life visible to all who passed by. It’s a tender tribute, even melancholy, in its quiet way of remembering. As long as we remember, and others remember those we have loved and have lost, they are still real for us, alive for us.
A person of Christian faith also remembers another life when we see the cross by the side of the road. We remember Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus had spent his 33 years on earth, ministering, teaching, healing, and then, finally arrested, tortured, and executed for who he was. Then, he rose himself from death, spent weeks after that appearing to many, and yet, even after that… if no one remembered beyond that generation, what would we know of him now? By Divine Providence, however, that was not to be.
People, real people not so different from ourselves, did take notice, did remember. Real, original, yet wholly unique people did remember, and acted on those memories. Not pious characters in fairy tales and legends, but real people. We call them saints. So… who are “the saints”? Where did this concept of even proclaiming someone as a “saint” even come from?
In the broad sense, all who now enjoy the presence of God in what we call Heaven, are saints. Every person, every one of us, is called to be one of this multitude, the billions of souls that have passed through this world. In a more restricted sense, a saint is a person, who by heroic virtue and noticeable witness to God has been officially recognized by the Catholic Church, and put on a list called the Canon of Saints. In simple terms, it is a sort of heavenly Hall of Fame. It is recognition of heroic and yet, ordinary people, who lived in extraordinary ways for the sake of their Faith. Catholics believe that these souls are now with God, and are still very much alive with their Creator, and all the other “saints,” not only those whose names we remember, but also the multitude of those who died and are long since forgotten by all but the Divine, and their loved ones who are with them.
The word “saint” is derived from the Latin, sancti or sanctus – “one who is holy.” The early Christians called their brothers and sisters who died in the grace of Christ, saints. In the latter part of the First Century, as the Roman Empire began vigorous religious persecution of Christians, those who were slain for their Faith came to be called martyrs, from the Greek, martyrion, meaning “witness.” A way to honor those martyrs was to visit the places where they died or were buried, much as we visit military battle sites and cemeteries. Soon, the anniversary of the death of a martyr was remembered by a liturgy held at the burial or execution site. After the persecutions finally ended, the veneration of the martyrs vigorously continued. This was a practice of everyday people, a grassroots movement, and was not imposed by religious authority. People of faith came to these sites and prayed for strength and asked the martyrs to pray for them and with them. You might guess what happened as a result of this “devotion” to the remembering of these holy people. Shrines, and eventually, great churches were built.
Think of St. Paul Outside the Walls, the great church in Rome on the site of Paul’s beheading, and St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest church on earth, built on the very bones of Peter. “The blood shed by the martyrs is the seed from which the Church will grow,” were the words of Tertullian, the North African churchman, in about 200 A.D.
The growing list of names were added to the canon, and by 600 A.D., Pope Gregory the Great initiated a liturgical calendar with feast days in honor of saints, on or near the anniversary of their deaths. These lives were not forgotten. They were remembered, and the canon is added to, to this very day. There were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than in all past centuries combined. At a time when we seem to have fewer heroes among us, at least that we know of, we still know greatness when we see it ourselves, up close. There is an innate human desire to identify with greatness. This is part of the basic rationale for devotion to the saints. They embody for us the challenges to our Faith, in our own time and place. They are alive with God, and they praise God with their prayers for us. Whether they are saints officially canonized or not, they remember us in the presence of God.
When you see the crosses by the side of the road, remember the lives those crosses represent. Catholics have a prayer for this, and as we pass a cemetery or a roadside memorial, it is good to pray, “Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls, and all the souls, of the faithful departed, rest in peace.” Remembering is central to the Christian tradition, and to the human one. We are, indeed, “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” (Letter to the Hebrews 12:1)
Deborah Hopkins is the director of religious education at St. Martin Parish in Rome.
Originally printed in the December 2020 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.