All Saints

 We the Church of England have had a hot and cold relationship with saints: Article 22 of the articles of religion found in the back of the Book of Common Prayer says:

“The Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration as well of images as of reliques and also invocation of saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of scripture but rather repugnant to the word of God.” 

Which you may agree is extremely cold indeed. The Catholic church on the other hand has had no doubts about this subject and venerating the saints has long been an element of their devotions. Following Pusey, Newman and the Oxford movement, Anglicanism has as ever tried to follow the via media restoring some recognition to the saints in modern times. The general argument is that saints are close to God because of their holiness but also accessible to man whose nature they share. There was a feeling that the worshipping community on earth was but an outlying colony at some distance from the true worshippers who we read about in the book of Revelation. 

“There was a great multitude, that no-one could count from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne, before the Lamb robed in white with palm branches in their hands.“

As my schoolboy nuns taught me “seeing God is heaven” and recognising this as we hear in this passage is a far cry from invoking saints’ interaction with the living. Yet this was previously so much the case that relics were moved from one place to another where it was thought that they might do more good. In Anglo Saxon England for example, St. Oswald was moved from Tynemouth to Gloucester and St. Judoc from Cornwall to Winchester. Sometimes the demands made on the saintly remains were more specific: Otto the 1st who was fighting in Magdeburg moved the body of St. Maurice the soldier saint from Burgundy to be among his troops in the field of battle. More prosaically but still current is the thought that we should pray to St. Anthony when we lose our car keys. 

Opinions have ever wavered on this,  St. Augustine himself changed his mind about saints being effective in the present, coming to this positive conclusion only much later in his life when he made use of the relics of St. Stephen. These  were brought to Africa to work daily miracles in St. Augustine’s growing congregation. So there is a range of views. 

In this church - All Saints Burnham Thorpe, you will observe the clear Protestant emphasis. There are no images of any sort, we are undistracted from our focus on God who is the only object of our worship. (Article 22). On this festival of All Saints, here, hearing again those words from Revelation we consider and reflect upon the examples of the so many faithful servants of God who have gone before us. Servants of all ages, sexes, races and conditions. 

Yet whatever their origins they are there “before the throne of God and worship him day and night.”

Here surely is the saintly example which we might all agree on , that above all we are to constantly give thanks and praise to God.

Amen