Saint Margaret’s 

Anglican Church

Budapest, Hungary

Daniel 7:1-3,15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1:11-23; Luke 6:20-31

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

Amen.

Today we celebrate the festival day of All Saints.  Well, actually yesterday, November first, was All Saints Day, but the Church wisely, I think, allows us, perhaps encourages us, to keep the feast on the Sunday following, which this year also happens to be the Day of the Dead, or, as we usually call it in English, All Souls Day.  Both days are somewhat late developments in the history of Christian worship, dating back to the middle of the Middle Ages, so only about one thousand years ago.  

No one knows for sure how they ended up in early November, more or less the middle of the autumn season, when the light is fading fast, but theories abound.  In any case, the Days give us pause toward the end of what must seem a nearly endless succession of Sundays after Pentecost and Trinity to ponder our own end and mortality; to remember that all things must and do come to an end; and to ask ourselves again, what on earth are we doing here.  Unfortunately, the conjunction of the two days, perhaps especially on a weekend as is the case this year, might also tempt us to think that sainthood or holiness is something just for the dead and gone.   

Yet, sainthood is most assuredly not just for dead people, for those who have passed on.  We are all called to holiness of life and oneness with God in Christ.  We are all called to sainthood.   As one now-dead saintly pope once put it while he was still alive and kicking, “if the Church is not creating saints, it is simply not doing its job.”  Indeed, to create and nurture saints would not be a bad vision statement or mission statement for any church community.  Perhaps we should adopt it here at Saint Margaret’s.  McDonalds makes hamburgers; Saint Margaret’s makes saints.

In any case, at least annually in the church calendar we reflect upon our mortality and the shortness of life at the same time we celebrate sainthood and holiness.  We celebrate in other words Christ at work in our lives.  And we remember that we are the All in All Saints; we are also the All in All Souls or will be soon enough.  What it means to be holy of course, to be a saint, is perhaps another matter, one a bit more difficult to define.   We might at first be tempted to think of those who commune readily and regularly with God, monks or nuns in their cells or those at constant prayer.  We might think of the eccentric Saint Simon Stylites who lived for many years, according to legend, at the top of a narrow tower in order to be closer to God in heaven.   

But then, we might also think of those saints who were known for their great acts of love and charity toward others.  Our own Saint Margaret of Scotland, for instance, whose festival day we shall keep in a fortnight, was a friend of the orphan and widow.  Or in our own age, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who spent her life ministering to the sick and suffering.  Then, there are the saints, such as Saint Stephen of Hungary, who became saints simply by being in the right place at the right time, by dint of office, by what they did for their nation and for the faith.  A lot of sainted popes and archbishops probably fall into this category.

Personally, I do not think we have enough ordinary saints.  There are relatively few married official saints for instance, probably because monks and popes usually got to decide who the official saints were to be.   There are not many women saints either, probably for the same reason; and I think this is also a great injustice.   There are not too many children who have been declared saints, although for their innocence and simplicity children may be the closest we come to having saints living in our midst on a regular basis, as hard as it may be for parents to believe when one of them is throwing a tantrum.  

Still, saints are at heart people of flesh and blood like everyone else.  After all, in the past of every saint is a sinner redeemed.  Sainthood is probably in one sense as deceptively simple as allowing God in Christ to live in us and through us.   Sainthood is who and what we are in Christ. We are “all saints” not because of anything we do, as much as we may wish it were so, but because of what God is doing in and through us: first loving us into existence and lastly making us one with God in the Kingdom of Heaven of which Jesus so often spoke.

And that Kingdom of which we are citizens is made up of saints who sin and sinners who astound us somehow with their generous and unexpected acts of love and forgiveness.  So, is it easy or hard to be a saint…?  Probably harder than you or I can possibly imagine.  Why…?  Because it is so simple.  For, sainthood requires that, like Christ himself, we allow ourselves to become vulnerable, that in faith we open ourselves to God and one another.  And that, my friends, is a tall order.  

People sometimes ask me if Anglicans have a process of canonization of saints such as the Roman Catholics have.  I always tell them that indeed we do, except that we Anglicans call it not canonization but Baptism.  For, that is where each of us truly becomes holy.  That is where and how each of us becomes a saint.  We are signed with Christ’s Cross and become his own forever in the waters of Baptism.   And we live no longer for ourselves alone, but we live thereafter in the God who creates, who redeems, and who sanctifies.  We live in other words in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The Rev. Canon Dr. Frank Hegedűs