For All The Saints

I’m just back from an 8-day study retreat in Assisi, Italy with 10 other clergywomen on St. Francis and St. Clare, their history and meaning today.  I’ll spend the next few weeks reflecting on the trip and on saints.

Now we call them saints, St. Francis and St. Clare, admirable and gentle, holy, special, set apart. 

But they were just kids, rich kids, in the small city of Assisi in the 13^th century.  Francesco Bernardone’s father was a rising star of the new merchant class, trading fabric all over Europe. His son Francis was a seeker, first of fame and fortune through partying and then the military, but with no satisfaction.  Until one day he dramatically stripped off his rich kid clothes in the public square, and naked, he declared God to be his only father from then on.  

Chiara Offreduccio’s family was even richer, noble, and they had been trying to marry her off strategically since she was 15, for over 3 years.  But she kept refusing matches, devoting herself to the poor and listening to Francis’ crazy sermons in the public square by her house.  Until she too rejected her parents and destiny.   

Both of them rebelled, dramatically leaving their families and choosing instead to live simple intense lives of devotion only to Jesus Christ.  Francis became a wandering friar, never spoke to his family again.  By his death at age 42, tens of thousands of men were following him and his way of life. Clare, his friend and follower, 12 years younger, ran away from home one night to follow Francis’ life of poverty, simplicity and devotion, and soon became the abbess of a group of cloistered women and leader of a new movement for faithful women. 

Both of these crazy young people were loved and venerated far and wide during their lifetimes,  and within just a few years of their deaths, both were canonized, declared saints.  Their orders and influence grew dramatically in numbers and impact even before their deaths, and now, 800 years later, both groups still influence and challenge not just the Catholic church, but the whole world.  

Fun facts about these two ancient but very contemporary role models.   You think Francis was basically a kind animal loving guy?  That Clare was a compliant obedient sheltered woman?

-Francis hated war and despised the Crusades so much that he undertook a dangerous trip to Egypt and talked his way into spending a month sharing ideas with a leading Muslim sultan, maybe hoping to convert him to Christianity, at least to engage him, faithful man to man about peace.  He came home unsuccessful in this peace mission, but he changed his own order’s rule to be more tolerant of other religions. 

-Clare was glad to be set apart from society, but she still related to the dangerous outside world.  When the Emperor’s troops sought to overrun and control the whole region, including her San Damiano convent, she simply met the military men in her cloister, held up her monstrance, a precious container of the real presence of Jesus in the bread, and told them strongly (yelling is how it is described, this gentle sheltered woman), yelled at them to leave.  They did.  Every year the citizens of Assisi process down the hill to San Damiano to recall and thank Clare for saving their city from these imperial troops. 

All this to say, Francis and Clare were not wimps;  these were some mighty, powerful saints. 

When we say someone is a “saint” we often mean:

• They are/were holier and better people than most of us.
• They have special powers and if we pray to them, they can heal us, change God’s mind, even change history.
• They choose to live unusual lives, very different from the rest of us.
• They usually deny themselves in some way and their simple, self-sacrificing lives are often cut short.

I find many of these statements about saints really hard to believe.  And I think there is truth in all of them.

The leaders of our study retreat were two church historians, Rev. Dr. Mary Luti and Rev. Dr. Ann Minton.  Both women were for many years members of Catholic religious orders and now are respectively ordained clergy and scholars in the United Church of Christ and The Episcopal Church. 

Catholics and Protestants tend to think very differently about what it means to be a saint.  Put simply, Catholics believe saints act as mediators between us and God, and that praying to the saints can effect personal healing and life changes.  Catholics also insist that saints are special, holier people than the rest of us.  Protestant tend to believe the opposite; there are not two classes of holiness.  Indeed the Bible refers to every faithful person as a saint, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph. 4)    Protestants believe that while so-called saints can inspire us with their exemplary lives, they do not have special access to God, nor should we pray to them. 

I am a lifelong Protestant, so I have tended to disparage the Catholic view of saints, which feels to me like blind and magical adoration of people who often lived pretty extreme and self denying lives.  At the same time I can’t help but admire many of these so-called saints for the ways they lived faithful lives, and how they have inspired so many other good works.  This past month I was inspired and impressed when Pope Francis declared Archbishop Oscar Romero to be a saint – his was surely a life and sacrifice worth emulating.  What a saint!

Ann and Mary, because of their experience in both Catholic and Protestant traditions, and their deep historical understandings, were able to help us learn and think, feel and pray in a very nuanced way about many different understandings of Francis’ and Clare’s lives and legacy.  In particular, they reminded us of how medieval folks, like Francis and Clare, understood what it meant to follow Christ, and to be a saint, very different from our time. 

One idea I got from Mary that intrigued and inspired me is that in the Middles Ages saints were not seen as exemplars or models for living.  They were not called saints because their lives were perfect, indeed it was often the opposite.  So that our response should not necessarily be to try to imitate their lives literally, but relate to them as inspirations.  As an open window inspires us – GO OUTSIDE!

For Medieval folks, saints point the way, they were gateways or windows to God, and the work they do and lives they lead are “generative” – they inspire and motivate, they give birth to more faithfulness, more good work.  An example she gave is that the Mayo Clinic was started by Franciscans, a legacy of the healing ministry of both Francis and Clare. A saint is someone whose life is a gift that keeps on giving.

More next week on how Francis and Clare continue to inspire and, yes, change us.  And maybe some thoughts about Clare’s vision of Francis nursing her with his bare breasts.  And reactions to all the nude nursing renditions I saw in Italian sculpture and art of Mary’s breast.  That should keep you interested to read next week!  Thanks Francis and Clare.

Copyright © 2018 Deborah Streeter