A couple of years ago, the Disney group came out with a movie called, “Coco.”
“Coco” takes place in Mexico and surrounds the story of young Miguel who dreams of becoming a musician. It is forbidden by his family because his great-great grandmother, Imelda, married a man who left her and her young daughter to pursue a career in music. Young Miguel believes that Ernesto, a wildly popular, now dead musician, is his great-great grandfather, the father of Coco, Miguel’s beloved abuela. Miguel steals Ernesto’s beloved guitar and in doing so becomes invisible to the living but visible to those dead relatives who are visiting the land of the living from the Land of the Dead for the Dia de Los Meurtos.
Miguel, after a long and convoluted story, needs the blessing of his real great-great grandfather, Hector and great-great grandmother, Imelda to break the curse and return, fully, to the land of the living. (You’ll have to rent the movie for the full details.)
Basically, it is a story of crossing over from the living to the dead. And, I think it is a story that reminds us that (as a colleague mentor friend of mine once said), “the dead are not that far from us…we are separated by a thin veil…”
For centuries the Christian Church has celebrated the “Communion of the Saints” on November the 1st. This is sometimes known as “All Saints Day” or “All Souls Day.”
Who are the Saints of the Church? What is this communion of which we speak? Christianity broadly defines saints as all believers in Jesus Christ, whether on earth or in heaven.
The word “saints” itself is a translation of a Greek word which means “holy ones.” Therefore, to accurately determine what the New Testament teaches about these “holy ones,” we must examine what it says about holy persons and things.
Basically, the New Testament writings define “saints” in all of three ways: 1) the community of believers gathered, the church, are the saints; 2) those who have lived and died in faith are the saints; and 3) those Christians living on the earth are the saints.
As we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, we’re not limited to those who have been officially canonized, or commemorated in the church calendar. They have their own particular days in the church year. “All Saints” speaks of those who were not famous, those who are not remembered by everyone, but those whose lives and deeds have endured beyond their death. The list includes our own beloved dead, those who have lived and died within our own faith community, our own families, our own circle of spiritual companions. As the familiar children’s hymn makes so clear, “The saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.”
The “saints” are every day, ordinary people, aren’t they? They are not just the Gandhis, the Martin Luther King, Jr’s and the Mother Teresas, but the faithful, imperfect as we are. Barbara Brown Taylor really captures this, as she writes of the Feast of the Communion of Saints as a sort of “family reunion.” Listen; she says:
So All Saints’ Day is a family reunion indeed, of a clan made kin by Christ’s blood. There are heroes and scoundrels at the party, beloved aunts and estranged cousins, relatives we adore and those who plainly baffle us. They are all ours, and we are all included. On All Saints’ Day we worship amidst a great fluttering of wings, with the whole host of heaven crowding the air above our heads. Matthew is there, and Thomas, Barnabas, and the Virgin Mary. Teresa is there, along with Ignatius, Pius, and Columba, plus all those whom we have loved and lost during the year: Hank, Dorothy, Margaret, Al. Call their names and hear them answer, “Present.” On All Saints Day they belong to us and we to them, and as their ranks swell, so do the possibilities that open up in our own lives. Because of them and because of one another and because of the God who binds us all together, we can do more than any of us had dreamed to do alone. (Weavings, Sept.-Oct. 1988, pp. 34-35, quoted in Synthesis)
It seems to me that the saints of the church are those men and women who, baptized and faithful, persevere in seeking God’s will in their lives.
And, it would seem that by their abiding in the Communion of Saints, they are not that far away.
revtlmack 