I’ve been thinking a lot about saints. Partly because it is that time of year. And partly because I launched a podcast with the word Saints in the title. But more than anything, I’m focused on what we, you and I, think of sainthood.

There isn’t one universal experience with the concept of sainthood, but there is something you may have noticed. The majority of people are more concerned with the saintly character of someone they know rather than the character of someone whom the church refers to as a saint.

This isn’t a problem, of course. It is natural and important. But there is an underside to it.

This week, we celebrate a day the church calls All Saints—which is actually pretty self-explanatory. We celebrate all of the saints.

And yet, for as long as I can remember, it is rendered as a day in which individual Christians lift up their loved ones who have (recently) died. There are long and convoluted reasons for this which track with All Souls (the day after All Saints), local customs, and ethnic traditions of honoring the dead.

This practice, of seeking to honor my loved one among the saints is an earnest and fascinating idea. And yet I can’t help but shake the feeling like it is kind of like elevating the subplot of a movie. Imagine saying the original Star Wars trilogy is about Princess Leia falling for Han Solo.

And yet it also feels like an advanced move. A kind of direct embodiment of the deep purpose of the All Saints and All Souls tradition.

Naming Saints

When talking about All Saints, I can’t help but notice how often our focus turns to family members rather than the people whom we the church elevate together.

We’re only a month removed from honoring one of the most famous and beloved saints in Francis. And only one month from honoring another in Nicholas.

And yet, when thinking of saints, I may have an easier time pulling my Grandma Joy out of my mind.

I’m not sure what this says about the church, sainthood, or me. But I do know that it makes me at least a little uncomfortable. Like there is something unbalanced or out of perspective in the popular imagination.

To the rescue

If we treat this like a problem, there are some obvious solutions. Independent study in which we embark on learning about the saints would help. So would more robust classes in church.

But I’m not so sure our vision of the saints is as much the problem as our vision of society. The more we’ve come to see ourselves as individuals stuck in some kind of matrix the less we see the actual value of a sainthood that reflects the values of our community.

And the same issue applies to our relationship to the saints: that they are special individuals acting individually.

This, of course, is ironic as the challenge such as ours is the fertile soil from which saints emerge. Those people of such great character or influence that they help us change the course of history.

Which, of course, is also the problem. Saints become individual heroes elevated rather than teachers from which all of us learn.

Becoming Saintly

Years ago, a beloved church member died. Everybody loved him and when we honored him in Christian burial, the church was packed. And one of the recurring phrases from this beloved saint of a man was this:

“He taught me everything I know.”

An incredible honor, for sure.

And yet they also saw him as irreplaceable.

I continued to dwell on that phrase for weeks afterward. How so many people said that he had taught them so much and yet we couldn’t manifest that learning in our community without him.

Any teacher worth the title knows that the hallmark of good teaching isn’t being called a good teacher, but seeing the students turn what they learn into something real.

This beloved saint really did have a huge impact on his community for sure. It is disappointing to see so few people take the risk to be more like him.

This, after all, is the point of elevating saints. So that we all might learn to be like them. Which, granted, is far easier to do with someone you have known personally than with someone dead for 1800 years.

But if the point is not only to show our devotion to a loved one or to show what we have learned from someone, but to show how Christ is revealed in our midst and how we are changed by it, then perhaps we all have a lot more to learn from all those who got it right.