St Oswald seems to have several tasks, he can
be evoked at harvest and at fire, and recently I
met him as a statue on Freiburg cathedral, I have
yet to find out why.
For most believers the saints have been
considered great heroes, who had achieved what
ordinary folks could not do, had sacrificed their
lives, could be called upon for help, would bring
about miracles. A saint’s life was without
blemish, like the hermit’s, who never washed but smelled of roses, as those
in Paradise would do. However, if you look more closely at their lives, you
would find weaknesses. Look at St Francis, who hated his body and
considered suicide, he was said to have had a ‘father complex’, an
‘emotionally accentuated idea in a repressed state’ about him.
The Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who sacrificed his life for a father in a
concentration camp, had written several anti-Semitic texts until he hid Jewish
people from the Nazis and voluntarily died for them. The belief in relics also
turned into unholy business ventures, sacred spaces would become money
changing places, holy festivals become times of commerce and stress. No,
holy things are God’s gifts, they are with us in the midst of life, as incomplete
as life is. You can listen to the music of Paradise even during the everyday
noise. “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in”, the
musician and poet Cohen wrote.
And so a Saint is no miracle man or woman. It is part of the life of St Francis
that he had this problem with his body, but he lived with the poor and saw in
every man and animal the miracle of God’s creation, and it belongs to
Maximilian’s life that he hated Jews until he met one in need. It can be only
a few seconds that can make a man into a saint, and sometimes they don’t
even notice when it happens.
Saint’ is a word for a human being who has the ability to grow beyond
himself, and God can use a human being who doesn’t even comprehend
what’s happening. Human actions can become ‘transcendent’, can ’break
down walls so that the light shines through’ The experience of the ‘Holy’ is
present in everyday life, you need to keep your eyes open to see it and
recognise the ‘saints’.
We can still see them today, because their lives are exemplary and God
inspired.
“Saints are people, through whom God’s light shines” (Jo Hermans)
B Williams
(using Andere Zeiten magazine 3/2015)
StOM Page 6