After this, I looked and there was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages….

Saint, what’s your definition of a saint? Do you have one? And what of Baptism, how would you define it in one sentence or less?


Baptism into sainthood, potential sainthood, perhaps, but sainthood offered, nonetheless.


Baptism is such a pervasive part of our society that it may have lost some of its social impact. However, that’s all right, as baptism is not mainly a social event. It’s a cosmic event linking us with more than we could imagine. Yet, it does remain pervasive; children play ‘baptism’ and I feel this is a good thing. It’s one of the few times in our conscious life that we allow the symbolic implications of our faith to enter into the everyday of our lives. It’s one of the few times in our conscious life that we allow the everyday of our lives to visibly mingle with our faith.


Case in point, last Sunday our youth had their Halloween party, usually a very secular affair. The very first trick or treaters that I remember from last Sunday were a tiny orange pumpkin and Mister Good Wrench, the fix it man.


Oh, no, no, no, how could I have forgotten that, sorry Lord! The first person I saw coming up the aisle was Jesus. Usually this doesn’t happen but this year it did, making it a real All Hallows Eve. I’m sure you don’t believe me, but a lot of other people saw him too. He came, and led the children in, actually he had them follow him…..it was awesome. Jesus also blessed us with his peace. The thing that confused me was the fact that you would expect the Son of God to be properly dressed. His robe was entirely too short, his sneakers did not match and he really looked very normal. Does that make sense? Yes, it does.


After this, I looked and there was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages….


More than any other day, the Sunday following All Saints’ Day is a family reunion day for the Church. This is the day we pull out those old family photo albums and remember where we came from. Aside from the pumpkin and Mr. Good Wrench, there were many other saints who made their debut that day, some for the first time, others had more experience, but All Saints’ Day is ours.


As we open the pages, we come across St. Peter with his great bushy beard; he stands in Jerusalem but there’s a smaller picture in the corner where Rome was the backdrop. Turning a couple of pages, we come across St. Francis. He has a bowl in one hand that feeds the world and his right hand is down, scratching the ears of the wolf at his side. There’s St. Joan that my Grandmother loved. A little further we open to St. Christopher and, perhaps, get splashed by the swollen river he’s wading through. He has a staff to steady himself in one hand and the other secures the child on his shoulder. There’s St. Benedict. He was very hard on his monks, but his rule is experiencing new favor even today. Mother Teresa is a great example of a saint who has moved on to a greater life. But, please note saints still walk the earth today. Many saints hold handkerchiefs and drop them in order for others to pick them up and carry on the sainthood now.


These are some of our more famous ancestors but, if you look, you’ll find others. We will come across people and stories that we’ve never heard of. However, when we realize that the album spans two thousand years, that’s not surprising.


Way back when I was small, I can remember watching an old movie as I sat on my Dad’s lap. In the movie, there was this beautiful young woman who was continually dropping her handkerchief and looking back at these handsome young men. I didn’t understand why she kept on dropping her tissue; my Dad told me it was a way of getting attention without being in the way. ‘Oh, I thought, not understanding what he had said at all. Now I do understand, and realize the same things are happening today, God is still trying to get our attention by dropping handkerchiefs for us to see.


What does surprise us, though, are the saints’ we know of personally. And, when you first start meeting saints you notice is that they’re not always, why saintly. St. Francis walked into his town naked in order to make a point. St. Christopher, I read, was on his way to work for the opposite side when he met a hermit who recruited him for God. Desmund Tutu had a temper and Mother Theresa had no problems telling you if you were spiritually lacking, even if you were the President of the United States. Some how or other, these and many others noticed that God was trying to get their attention.


After this, I looked and there was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages….


Definitions of Sainthood--- Baptism is the doorway into the church and Sainthood. Thru the door of baptism, Sainthood beckons. There are those that let the light shine thru in whatever application is necessary in their time and place. Existence is the criteria and baptism is the means. May the doorway we have entered always be held as sacred and may your sainthood be made solid in this life and well beyond


“In God’s holy flirtation with the world,’ “God occasionally drops a handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.” They are dropped in order to work, to lead, to follow, to get attention or for whatever reason God might have in mind. While this may suggest that saint making is God’s business, we know they do exist. We know some and that also means we can’t just shrug and say that sainthood is beyond our reach or our responsibility.


AMEN
The Rev. Denise P. Mantell