Print Issue: October 31, 2002

'Communion of Saints': Kinship In The Body Of Christ

The Atlanta skyline provides a background to the silhouette of a cross projected before the night sky over Oakland Cemetery. Jesus' promise of eternal life for those who believe in him is the hope of Chrisitian life for the living and the dead. (Photos by Michael Alexander)

By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer

ATLANTA - Catholics pray it often in the Apostles Creed: "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins . . ."

But what actually is the communion of saints?

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, this means not only canonized saints with a capital S, but also the solidarity among the entire body of Christ that makes up the church, both the living faithful and the dead who died in Christ.

It also refers to communion through "holy things," including charisms possessed by individuals to build up God's kingdom, charity, which benefits the whole body while sin hurts it, and the sacraments. Above all, it emphasizes the connection we have through the Eucharist, which unites the faithful.

Father Jack Durkin, pastor of Christ Our Hope Church in Lithonia, emphasized the certainty that death doesn't separate people in spirit from their loved ones.

"We know we are united with the people who are gone. We are definitely connected by the body of Christ. If we believe Christ is at the right hand (of the Father) we also believe in the body of Christ," he said. "We should be consoled by that reality."

All Saints Day Nov. 1 and All Souls Day Nov. 2 are times when Catholics are especially encouraged to remember and honor the deceased. All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation that dates back to the fourth century, honors both known and unknown saints in heaven, particularly those with no feast days, while All Souls Day is a time to pray, do charitable works and attend Mass for all the faithful departed. All Hallows Eve, now Halloween, actually refers to the vigil of All Saints.

Some of the ways religious educator Mary Ann Fischer experiences the concept of the communion of saints is through women in her family who have gone before her. Fischer, whose first job was teaching at a Catholic school, now directs adult faith formation and Christian education at St. Ann's Church, Marietta. She recalled attending an Ursuline school as a child and observing her great aunt, the only lay teacher at the school.

"She really stood out to me as a model of a woman who made a decision to lead her life by sharing her faith and teaching in an all girls school as a lay teacher," Fischer said. "Because I do work similar to the work that she did - I have been in Christian education for my whole life - I have a great kind of mental connection with her, a sense that I'm kind of continuing the work she modeled for me."

Her mother and grandmother also served as role models as she raised her six children. The church tradition of the communion of saints recognizes "that we are a family and some have reached that goal (of heaven)," Fischer said. "We reach out to one another - they to us and we to them - as we journey here on earth."

"To be a Christian is to recognize we are joined to one another on the way to our eventual goal of heaven. We're united to those who've gone before us. It's been a tradition of the church from the very beginning to understand that those who have gone before are praying for us and we are invoking their help."

An angel on top of a headstone looms over the southeast side of Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta's oldest cemetery. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, our belief in "the communion of all the faithful of Christ" consists of the "pilgrims on earth, the dead who are being purified, and the blessed in Heaven." It is our further belief that all together they form one church.

The catechism states, "We believe in the communion of all the faithful of Christ, those who are pilgrims on earth, the dead who are being purified, and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one Church; and we believe that in this communion, the merciful love of God and his saints is always (attentive) to our prayers."

While people tend to want to eulogize and romanticize the deceased, Father Durkin stressed the importance of praying for the repose of all souls in heaven and seeking indulgences for them, however holy they were on earth. This includes praying for those of other faiths, who the church believes can also reach heaven.

He recalled stories of his saintly grandmother, who was once told by a priest in confession that with all the work she'd done in her life as a mother of seven she didn't need the sacrament. She responded, "Buddy, listen to my confession," her priest-grandson said. Upon preparing for her death she said, "You offer a Mass for me and pray for me, don't eulogize me."

While Catholics hopefully strive to be saints on earth, "we're obligated out of love and charity for them to pray that they get to heaven," he continued. "We have hope (for heaven). We pray for everybody to be in heaven because Jesus came to save the whole world. He died to save the whole world."

While "we meet people all the time where we say, 'if that person hasn't gone to heaven then I wonder what my chances are,'" the priest said, it is important to pray for all the deceased. This instruction corresponds with church teaching that when the faithful die they go to purgatory where they are purified from venial sin or attachment to it before entering heaven, which is for persons who are in a state of grace and perfectly detached from sin. He also encouraged visiting graves, noting that in early Christian times people held graveside memorial Masses on the death anniversary of loved ones, their birthday into eternal life.

As people live their faith, the church teaches that saints in heaven also intercede in prayer to the Father for those on earth. St. Dominic said on his deathbed to his brothers, "Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall help you then more effectively than during my earthly life."

Father Durkin said it's fine to ask someone who died for their intercession, just as one may have sought that person's prayer during their earthly life.

And God uses the canonized saints, certainly in heaven, whose lives have been investigated and who have been declared by the church to have done miracles on earth, as co-workers with Christ to carry out his will. Catholics may go to them in prayer-just not adoring or worshipping them. When someone loses his keys, God with his perpetually full plate may say, "St. Anthony, why don't you do it?"

"We see saints, having received grace from Jesus, as intervening for us and doing good for us," Father Durkin said.

Fischer said Catholics look up to canonized saints as "outstanding models for the Christian family" and representatives of all the countless other silent, never to be named saints, holy men and women who quietly lived graced lives. Many Protestants converting to Catholicism come in with a "saint hang-up," she said, until they realize the focus of the canonization process is always about lifting up admirable followers of the "ultimate model" of Christ. She said St. Teresa of Avila-her confirmation name - is a model for her and many who work for the church.

Heaven, the catechism says, is "the communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed . . . Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness."

Fischer has received assurance through the years of the promise of heaven while sitting by family members on their deathbeds and seeing their sense of peace.

"They are seeing something you can't see. I think those are gifted moments in our lives."

And she reminds Catholics that a prayer prayed at every Mass "from age to age you gather a people to yourself" is "an outreach to those who have gone before us . . . That to me speaks of the communion of the saints."