Last year for the Solemnity of All Saints, I wrote on the first reading from Revelation 7, to which I referred again in the recent post on “lukewarm” Catholics. Recently Fr. James Martin drew attention to the saints, as he often does, in a short video examining the question of who and what is a saint. He points out that saints are not only those declared such officially by the Church, but include many more, both those we might have known personally and those who are nameless to us. He also adds that we are all called to be saints precisely by fulfilling who we are called to be by God.  It reminds me that the Apostle Paul calls all those who were members of the Church hagioi, which is Greek for “holy ones” or saints as it is most often translated into English. Everyone is indeed called to be “holy” and so called to be a “saint.” There is this tension in Paul’s letters in a number of different ways between the “imperative” and the “indicative”: in this case Paul states that we are indeed “saints” and also called to be “saints.” There is in Paul that sense of “already” and “not yet,” which the second reading from 1 John 3: 1-3 and the Gospel reading from Matthew 5:1-12 also suggest.

For even those who are declared “saints,” either officially by the Church or by popular consent by all who meet them, are on earth far from heavenly perfection. John says that “we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” The description of God “as he is” includes the otherness of God which we can only mimic and which is known as holiness, yet we have this promise that “we will be like him.” Perhaps John’s own insights are based on the Beatitudes, for Jesus says in Matthew  that “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” In these two Beatitudes we have the same realities noted once again: those who are blessed are called children of God for they will see God. Holiness at its heart is to be more like God and ultimately to be with God.  

In the meantime, this side of heaven, Jesus has given us guidelines for holiness in the Beatitudes, to be peacemakers, to be pure in heart, to be meek, to be poor in spirit. We are to be holy, to be saints, because in doing so we become most fully who we are and most fully like God.

 John W. Martens

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.