Today is All Saints’ Day

Recently we were with our daughter and her kiddos. Our grandchildren attend a Catholic school, and our granddaughter has a project coming up. She has to pick three Saints, submit the names to her teacher, choose one for her to study, and give a report. After talking about different Saints, she decided on Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, and Joan of Arc.

All Saints’ Day is observed in the Roman Catholic, some Lutheran churches, and the Anglican Communion. It is a Christian feast day of the highest honor celebrating all of the saints of the Church, whether they are known or unknown.

As we were talking through which saints she might be interested in studying, I told her when I was confirmed (I was raised Roman Catholic), I took the name of Teresa of Avila as my confirmation saint. I was fascinated by her story. Teresa was a Spanish Carmelite nun who lived in the 1500s. She was a mystic, a teacher of prayer, and the first female recognized as a Doctor of the Church. (Doctor is Latin for “teacher.”) She was a reformer; Teresa’s life was dedicated to restoring contemplative prayer and a life of discipline to fall more deeply in love with and gain unity with Christ. She used metaphors to describe her relationship with God. Prayer and various practices grounded her in such a way that she wrote, “The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gives move fruit.” And on another occasion, she wrote:

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands; yours are the feet; yours are the eyes; you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

And another:

“Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.”

In times of shaking, rupture and upheaval, where do you find anchors? The conversation with my granddaughter reminded me, no, revealed to me my anchors in faith. As a 12-year-old, taking the confirmation name of Teresa, there was no way to know where my life would take me. Here I am today. I have my doctorate in ministry, and I have a passion for cultivating practices that ground myself and others in the love of God, and I am living in a time of Church reform.

More than any time in my life, anything that can be shaken is being shaken. I am grateful my grandchildren are being formed in the Way of Love. Through baptism, eucharist, and the remembering of the Saints who have gone before us, they are being firmly established in faith that has preceded them by generations. Just a few months I had the privilege of baptizing these beautiful grandchildren into the great faith of the Church.