ALL SAINTS DAY MASS
SERMON PREACHED BY THE VENERABLE DAVID LOWMAN ARCHDEACON OF SOUTHEND SUNDAY 5TH NOVEMBER 2006
How blest are those who know their need of God; the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Matthew 5:3.
‘What’s a saint? A bundle of bones which fools adore when life is over. Ha ha.” Words from Cardinal Newman in his poem The Dream of Gerontius and set to music by Edward Elgar. These are the words of demons sent to mock and tempt the recently departed soul of Gerontius. Set to music it is stunning and has to be sung in a hard and cynical way. Although I know the piece well this passage always shocks me and raises questions.
I have seen bits of St Peter, St Clare, St Francis, the heart and left forearm of St Theresa of Avila, planks of the Holy Cross and sometimes wonder what it is all about. Certainly the cult of the saints and in particular of relics got out of hand at the time leading up to the Reformation, but can we sweep it all away? I think not.
You have some exquisite stained glass here with lots of saints looking down on us from their slightly superior vantage point – they are wonderful but a little distant.
What’s a saint? A bundle of bones, a stained glass window, a sort of last resort when all else has failed? How often do you call on St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, or is it something more serious?
Let’s go back to the scriptures, to Isaiah in the Temple where he suddenly sees the Lord God in glory. He cries out ‘Woe is me for I am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips’. He has seen the glory and holiness of God. He is altered for ever – his personality, his life style and his teaching are transformed by being in the presence of the Holy. Remember Moses at the burning bush – ‘You are standing on Holy ground’ and then when he climbs the mountain of God he is confronted by the glory and his face shines so brightly that he has to wear a veil when he comes down so that the people are not blinded.
And then Jesus, the Word made Flesh, comes into the world. People who meet him are effected by being in his presence. Remember the woman who just has to touch his robe to know that she will be healed. Or blind Bartimaeus, who had to come into his presence with faith so that he could see the light. He saw not only the physical light but the Light of the World. The holiness of Jesus illuminated him. Peter the seeming favorite but lost cause, the Labrador puppy of the disciples, was transformed by the presence of the Risen Jesus and his Holy Spirit in his life and became the greatest teacher and evangelist along with Paul. And on it goes throughout the centuries. Men and women who have been touched by the holiness of God have found their lives utterly transformed. The slave trader John Newton found God and could speak of Amazing Grace. The priest Maximilian Kolbe, in the concentration camp who pushed a frightened Jewish person out of the queue for the gas chamber and took their place. He had seen the glory of God.
And each of us has the opportunity and the vocation to become God’s Saints, his holy ones. We gather together regularly at the Altar of God, participate in the benefits of the Sacrifice of Jesus, and share in his living Presence. In that way we too at every Mass are there on the Mount of Transfiguration, there at the Last Supper and there at the Resurrection. ‘ Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord’ I have seen, I have believed and now I am to BE one of His Saints. (The words Saint and Holy derive from the same root word, hagios in Greek and sanctus in Latin.
And is there a model for a saint? We all have our favorites – the greatest of which being Our Lady – I think that there is. We find it in Matthew in the words of Jesus in the beatitudes. Revolutionary words which have turned the world and its values upside down. What Jesus said in management terms would not lead to building up an organization that would change the world. Who in their right mind would put forward a Resume saying that they were needing God, sorrowful, gentle, merciful, pure, peacemakers, and willing to suffer persecution. That is not the way they built up ENRON. Oh but look what happened to that. No, our faith in Jesus and his teaching leads us on an entirely different way – it is the way of God. Jesus needed God, was sorrowful, gentle, merciful, pure and a real peacemaker, and above all suffered persecution because he knew God and wanted God’s will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.
We then stand in the presence of the Holy – we are now becoming Holy, we are to be the Saints of today transforming the unjust structures of society, showing people the brightness of the living God and offering the whole world a renewed vision and hope for the future.
‘What’s a Saint? A bundle of bones which fools adore when life is over.” No. It is the living body of Christ – touched by the vision of holiness we have seen in Jesus, and received in his Gospel teaching. Our response can only be to sing out with the angels and saints of the past, the words which end the Dream of Gerontius – ‘Praise to the Holiest in the height, and in the depth be praised. In all his works most wonderful, most sure in all his ways.’
ALL SAINTS DAY EVENSONG AND BENEDICTION
SERMON PREACEHD BY THE VENERABLE DAVID LOWMAN, ARCHDEACON OF SOUTHEND, SUNDAY 5TH NOVEMBER 2006.
‘I saw no temple in the city. For its temple was the sovereign Lord God and the Lamb.’ Revelation 21:22.
The Diocese of Chelmsford, which comprises a large part of the East End of London and the County of Essex, has rather a lot of temple, or rather Churches – about 608 of them. So you might think that we are one of the holiest places in the U.K. – the Lord’s presence in all those buildings. With so much to choose from, where do I find the Living God? Where are the Saints now? Does it matter? Let me take you on a journey of discovery.
In 654AD, St Cedd, the brother of St Chad and St Caedwon, (their Mother must have been very proud to have produced three saints!) set sail from Lindisfarne, Holy Island, the Celtic Church centre founded by St Cuthbert. He sailed south from the bleak Northumberland coast and landed at an old Roman fort called Othona, now called Bradwell. He would have felt at home as it is as bleak as Lindisfarne. There he built a little Church and started a mission to the East Saxons (hence the name Essex). The people responded to the Word of God. The Church he built is still there and I visit this bleak place from time to time and discover along with so many other pilgrims something of the mysterious power and presence of the living God. It is a Holy place where the Saints have prayed over the ages. You walk half a mile along a path towards the sea and there is this rather forbidding building looming up in the distance. Open the door and in this barn like place you suspend thought and action and let yourself be. A hymn comes to mind
‘These stones which have echoed their praises are holy,
And dear if the ground where their feet have once trod’
Move two or three centuries and 25 miles to the village of Bocking on the edge of the town of Braintree. Thee you will find the huge Deanery Church of St Mary the Virgin dating from the 14th century, but founded 1000years ago. In three weeks time they celebrate their millennium. They have two local Saxon Saints, Aetheric and Aelred, about whom we know remarkably little. In the early 1900s a new stained glass east window was placed in the Church and in one corner you see the two founding saints. They are a pretty good Edwardian representation of what they imagined Saxon Saints looked like – heavily bearded, rough hewn, wearing tunics and cloaks, bare hairy knees. Just what we think the saints were like apart from the fact that it has been discovered that one of them was a woman! Despite this little error, the Church here is still alive with increasing congregations and a growing sense of holiness.
Move on a few more centuries and 20 miles south to Billericay, which now has five churches, three of which are modern. This was a town from which many of the Pilgrim Fathers came. The local school is called the Mayflower. The influence of the dissenters is still in the town and the churches reflect the low church, non conformity of their forefathers. A church in one of the neighbouring villages of Stock Harvard, looks like the ones you see on the green in little New England towns, until you realize that the New Englanders copied the design of the church from Stock Harvard. Saints have been around in every age.
Then move on again to the East End of London where in the 19th century faithful, holy, Anglo Catholic priests founded congregations which ministered to the appallingly poor people in the slums and built churches which in many ways helped people to see something of the glory of God. Many of these priests were worn out by the work and died young alongside their parishioners. They were holy and devoted men.
You might wonder whether you have an Archdeacon talking to you at present or a religious travel agent! I suppose it is a bit of both. But the journey to find the saints is long and varied and covers time and distance.
A few months ago I had to celebrate and preach at the Church which is nearest to where I live. All Saints Kings Road, Chelmsford. It was built 40 years ago, looks a bit like a wigwam and is suffering already from structural problems. It is situated in the toughest part of the city where there is crime and drug taking and a lack of respect for authority brought about by poverty and unemployment6. The Church is hidden away up an alleyway behind a not very nice bar and gambling shop. It suffers from vandalism. The congregation is small, averaging about 40 at the main Mass. It is also rather elderly and very few members are employed. They are financially challenged. There have been five priests in the last 16 years. It is hard work and hardly, you would think, in the tradition of St Cedd, Aelthric, the Pilgrim Fathers and the fathers of the Anglo Catholic Revival. You might think that it is the sort of place that management minded Bishops and Archdeacons would contemplate closing.
On that Sunday the priest was on a well deserved vacation and I walked the few hundred yards to the church. The service was fine. It was after Communion that I looked up from the Altar and there were three or four members of the congregation tending to the needs of a wheelchair bound, physically and mentally disabled young man and also to two or three elderly and confused old ladies. They were being held, made comfortable, respected, loved and prayed with. I looked up from having given and received the Blessed Sacrament and I saw a new heaven and a new earth. I saw the New Jerusalem. I saw God’s holy people, his Saints, I saw the Kingdom of Heaven breaking into the place. I saw Jesus in the faces of the carers and the cared. There was Holy Communion and I was deeply humbled and moved. Oddly I do not suppose that anyone else in the building was conscious of what I saw. They were just getting on with doing what they were good at – being Saints in today’s world.
There may never be any stained glass windows depicting the people of All Saints King’s Road. Indeed by the time I return more of the existing glass may have been smashed, but that does not matter at all.
God calls each of us to be his saints in our own way and in our own time. As we now gaze on Jesus in the Holy Sacrament may we be overwhelmed by his light and power so that we may now reflect his glory in San Diego.
‘I saw no Temple in the City; for its Temple was the sovereign Lord God and the Lamb’.