All Saints Solemnity

Community Sermon after Lauds by Br. Barry

ALL SAINTS 2010.

‘Give us a place among your saints in glory that will never end’.

While we are on this earth we are always in a place, a location. The words just quoted from the Te Deum tell us that in the next life too there are places, places occupied by the saints. On the surface of the earth, there are many spots where the two places, a place on earth and a place in heaven, correspond. These are the places of pilgrimage, holy places.

Firstly, the place of a saint’s mortal remains will become a holy place, Assisi for St. Francis and St. Clare, for example. If there are no mortal remains, anywhere associated with a saint suffices: the place of his or her birth or somewhere to do with their life’s work: Whithorn for St. Ninian, Monte Cassino or Subiaco or Norcia for St. Benedict.Then there is the spot where a martyr was killed or a place of apparition maybe.

 A place may also be linked to a saint not so much as a place of pilgrimage but as falling under a saint’s protection and this applies of course to whole countries and even whole continents. A clear illustration, on a slightly smaller scale than continents, can be found not far away from here.

The small Borders town of Innerleithen, population two and a half thousand, lies six miles east of Peebles. In the town and surrounding area there are street names, landmarks, a school, a silver band and an hotel all named after St. Ronan, a Celtic saint who died in the eighth century. The badge of the local football team depicts St. Ronan sailing in his coracle, crook or crozier in his hand. The nature of the link between the Saint and the district in the local tradition is quite simple, he protects the town from the devil.

Saint Ronan

Now, it is perfectly true that the connection between the town and the saint was formalised or firmed up by the novel of Sir Walter Scott entitled ‘St. Ronan’s Well’. But the tradition was already there in his childhood towards the end of the eighteenth century and this, remember, over two hundred years after the Reformation. Such is the strength of the bonds forged between saints and places.

 For many people, a monastery can be one of those places of pilgrimage or at least a holy place or a special place. Yet, you will not necessarily find saints in a monastery. All the same, a monastery of any duration whatever will have built up a momentum of prayer through the years so as to make an atmosphere of prayer. All the monastery’s prayer is prayer seeking its place in heaven and if the monastery is one of those places especially open to grace then this must be due in part to the influence of its own saints – its patrons, the founder of its Order maybe, the author of its Rule.

So this little corner on the face of the globe, here on the northern slopes of the Lammermuir hills, has a direct link with that place in heaven occupied by St. Mary; with St. Aelred’s place in glory, with the places of Ss. Robert, Alberic and Stephen and with that of St. Benedict.

The monk in his monastery has found his place on earth, according to his vow of stability. From there he might catch a glimpse from time to time of his place in heaven. It is not certain that he will get there but we live in hope.

That liturgical expert, Dom Prosper Gueranger wrote of today, ‘ the West celebrates at the close of the year a feast which represents the gathering of the harvest into our heavenly Father’s granary’.

 The feast of All Saints, occurring as it does at the end of the autumn season and the beginning of winter, replaced in this part of the world the ancient pagan feast of Samhain. This was a feast of fire and light to protect the people from the increasing dark and cold and the powers of death that lurked behind them. During Samhain, the veil separating this world from the Otherworld became very thin. It is this festival that lies behind the customs of Halloween, Bonfire Night and November as the month of the dead.

The light of All Hallows, however, comes from the fire of the Easter Vigil and the light of the Paschal candle. It is the light of Christ reflected by the saints. There is another link with Easter night. The Exultet describes how on Easter night ‘ heaven is wedded to earth’. On All Saints too, heaven and earth come very close, caused by the intercession of all the saints for believers and for non–believers. The connection between a particular spot on earth with a particular saint and his or her place in heaven, today becomes a meeting of the whole earth with all of heaven.

Autumn 2010 Lothians Forth & Fife