Who Are The Saints Among Us?

All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day in November are times to remember the saintly people we have ever known. (Photo courtesy of MediaStorehouse).

In my daily prayer practice, I use a booklet called “Give Us This Day,”
put out each month by Liturgical Press. It includes Scripture readings for Morning and Evening Prayer and the Mass. I’m honored to be among the authors who write the reflections that accompany the daily Mass readings.

In the month of November, we honor both saints and those we know who have died. “Give Us This Day” includes a regular feature called “Blessed Among Us” in which author and editor Robert Ellsberg profiles a different Catholic saint each day, as well as others considered “Blessed” or “Servants of God.”

To his credit, Ellsberg also includes people who aren’t saints, but are models of decency and faith. People like TV’s Fred Rogers, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, singer Mahalia Jackson, and pioneering publisher Maisie Ward.

“Give Us This Day,” a monthly prayer aide published by Liturgical Press.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Ellsberg includes the late Congressman John Lewis and the sixties Freedom Riders in one of his upcoming “Blessed” profiles.

I was moved to tears recently watching a documentary on how the Freedom Riders responded peacefully to the people who beat them, set dogs on them and tried to burn them alive by setting fire to their bus.

Among those who attacked the civil rights workers were likely people you’d likely see in church — people convinced they stood for law and order. Sometimes we become so convinced that God is on our side that we ignore what the gospels actually ask of us.

An amazing number of the “blessed” profiled in “Give Us This Day” were denounced in their own time, even excommunicated by their church.

St. Mary MacKillop, first Australian named a Catholic saint, was excommunicated in her time by her bishop. (Photo courtesy of Catholic Outlook)

That was the case with St. Mary MacKillop, canonized in 2010 as the first Australian Catholic saint. The order she founded, the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, practiced strict poverty, opened dozens of schools, and cared for orphans, the elderly and the chronically ill.

Still, Mary MacKillop was excommunicated for refusing to cede authority over her order to a bishop. That bishop and the other male clerics who denounced her barely merit a footnote to history. Mary MacKillop is now Brisbane’s patron saint.

Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, was arrested numerous times for her social activism and found herself at odds with many in the Catholic hierarchy. She is now being considered for canonization.

Another of my heroines is Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement. New York Cardinal Francis Spellman wanted Day to remove the word Catholic from her movement’s name. Perhaps the cardinal thought opening houses of hospitality for the poor and marginalized was somehow antithetical to the faith. Day flatly refused.

Spellman has a high school in New York named after him, but Day is currently on a path toward canonization.

While women are frequently the targets of officialdom, many men also have come in for censure.

Two of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read are “The Divine Milieu” and “The Phenomenon of Man” by French Jesuit theologian, paleontologist and geologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. De Chardin’s research led him to theorize that creation is ongoing and infused with the mind of Christ, toward which all consciousness is evolving.

The Vatican censored de Chardin for “doctrinal errors.” His order forbade him to teach. Today, Pope Francis and retired Pope Benedict XVI both cite de Chardin’s ideas in their writings. His books are considered classics of science and theology. Prayers and passages from his work are staples at Catholic spiritual retreats.

As Psalm 118 remind us, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

All Saints Day on November 1 and All Soul’s Day on November 2 offer us a chance to reflect not only on saints of the past, but also the saintly among us today. I count in that number my friend Dianne Clemmons, who survived one of the most serious cancer diagnoses a woman can face.

Dianne now supports countless women through their cancer journey with her message of “trust and thanksgiving.” Trust that there is meaning in all that we experience. And thanksgiving for all of the small blessings that keep us putting one foot in front of the other.

I include in my litany of saints my friend Peter Donnelly. The oldest of eight children, Peter taught all of his siblings to drive and helped move each of them into their first apartment. He remained at home to care for his aging parents and a bachelor uncle before marrying a wonderful woman when he was 56.

Mail carriers kept us in touch with the outside world during the lockdown months. They are among “the blessed among us.” (Photo courtesy of wbsm.com)

I look upon our mailman Brett as “blessed among us” for helping us keep in touch with the outside world through the lockdown months of this pandemic.

I consider blessed as well the stockers, cashiers, and other supermarket employees who keep showing up for work, even as COVID cases are once again rising.

I include the nearly 2,000 health care workers — doctors, nurses, paramedics and others — who have succumbed to the virus trying to save the lives of others.

And, I include those who died unnecessarily because steps to counteract COVID were not put in place sooner: Lewis Ripps, my father’s former boss; Michael Begley, a favorite restauranteur; and Elaine McGuire, the longtime receptionist for Mount St. Scholastica, the monastery where I am a lay associate.

I remember them all.

Health care workers in Tampa Bay, FL attempt to save a life. Nearly 2,000 health workers have succumbed to COVID-19. (Photo courtesy of Tampa Bay Times).

Poet and Benedictine Sister Jennifer Halling sent out a quote this week from Unitarian Pastor Victoria Weinstein. I pass it on to you on this eve of All Soul’s Day:

“There is no need to end our relationship with the dead, for they are still ours. Still ours to struggle with, to learn from, and to love … We make use of whatever hard-won wisdom they were lucky enough to gain while they lived. We continue to forgive them, if forgiveness is called for. We continue the work of their hands.”

Who are the everyday saints we know and have known? How can we show those who are still with us our appreciation and love?