SIQs for All Saints Day

#1

Anatole France said that when he was a little boy he read the story of the life of St. Someon Stylites, that strange gentlemen of ancient times who lived for thirty years on top of a sixty-foot pillar in Syria, and for some reason Anatole decided he was called to perform a similar act of saintly heroism. So he went into the kitchen, climbed up on the kitchen cabinet, and stayed there all morning. At lunchtiem he got down. His mother, who understood what was happening, said: "Now, you mustn’t feel bad about this. You have at least made the attempt, which is more than mosrt people ahv ever done. But you must rememebr that it is almost imposiible to be a saint in your own kitchen."

(Comment from Bass: But of course this is exactly what we are called to be, isn’t it - saints in our kitchen! aints wherever we are. Not a bad sermon title)

#2

The church is perhaps one of the few places left where we can meet people who are different than we are but with whom we can form a larger family.

Henry Nouwen

#3

During the civil and religious strife of the Reformation in England, PRotestant Roundheads stormed into cathedrals, destroying relgious symbols. In Winchester Cathedral they wrecked a hugh stained glass window which majestically dominated the long catherdral. On the cold stone floor lat fragments of the beautiful colored glass. The shattered pieces, which once had shaped a Rembrandt-like sccene, could not be restored to form the originial picture. What could be done? Board up the window? Throw out the glass? With love and care, the people picked up the pieces. Long before the time of abstract art, they leaded the broken glass togetgher with hope and returned it to the round window. Today, 300 years later, the same sun shines through the same beautiful colors of fine stained glass, a kaleidoscope of pieces, rearranged in a different and even more meaningful way.

To me, this is our lives and the church, I would pray. So broken are we in our own lives and in our churches. Yet, somehow with the help of the Spirit, we are picking up the pieces, putting them back together. And maybe God’s light in Christ is still shining somehow through us. We are saints but with broken halos.

#4

Saint: a dead sinner revised and edited.

(Ambrose Bierce: The Devil’s Dictionary)

#5

A saint is one who makes goodness attractive.

Laurence Housman

#6

Saints are persons who make it easier for others to believe in God.

Nathan Soderblom