October 2024

Remembering the saints is a source of energy and hope

As the feast al All Saints approaches, I wish to develop a personal canon of female saints who will help me live faithfully in a violent world, writes Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner.

The stories are relentless – climate catastrophe, war, rape, domestic violence, racial vilification, gun massacres, scammers and stalkers. Doesn’t the perilous state of the world feel overwhelming? So much destruction and carnage and a never-ending legacy of hatred, suffering and despair.

I find myself asking why we don’t hear more good news. Is there any to hear? Where is the hope?

By happenstance (aka the grace of God), as I pondered the misery-making news bulletins, I reached for a book that has been on my shelf for nearly 25 years and never read. In 1999, American theologian Elizabeth Johnson wrote Friends of God and Prophets – A Feminist Theological Reading of the Communion of Saints.

I began reading and was soon doing so hungrily. The book is scholarly yet accessible, theologically sound, historically accurate and timely. Johnson’s exploration of the Communion of Saints is a good news story, good news which I craved. I found within solace and wisdom for today.

The saints, Johnson reminds us, are many and varied. They are not restricted to those canonised intrepid, heroic, miracle-performing individuals who, in the retelling of their lives, often appear to be cut from material that differs from my human cloth.

In the early Church, the “saints” referred to the entire community, those trying to live their lives as faithful followers of Jesus. St Paul, for example, begins one letter “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi” (Phil1:1). The saints were and continue to be the holy and the not so holy, women and men, married and single, rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, leaders and followers. They are Spirit-filled people, people of good will, ordinary folk like you and me who are trying to love God and each other as best we can.

From the time of persecution by the Roman Empire to the present day there have indeed been intrepid heroic figures who witnessed to and died for their faith. Initially, these martyrs (the word “martyr” means “witness”) became known as saints by a fairly simple process of acclamation by the community.

The living honoured the dead for their commitment to Christ and their efforts to live the Good News. They formed a circle of friendship as they retold the stories of the deceased, rejoicing in and learning from well-lived lives. Though contexts differed widely, members of the Christian community identified with their predecessors and felt a sense of solidarity with them as they too struggled to be faithful, loving and true.

As happens over time, by the Middle Ages a simple process of communal acclamation morphed into a centralised bureaucratic procedure. Concurrently, an egalitarian companionship model gave way to a patronage model whereby a specific saint was esteemed as patron for a particular community and interceded to God on its behalf.

Based as it was on the patronage system that operated within patriarchal civil society, the patronage model was essentially hierarchical and distanced the intercessor from the One who is the source of all grace. Martin Luther’s critique was well-founded: “Every person selected his own saint and worshiped and invoked him in time of need … All these fix their heart and trust elsewhere than in the true God.”

Saint-making became a long, expensive and somewhat elitist process. Saint-makers were European clerics who, more often than not, canonised European clerics. From the 10th to the 19th century, 87% of canonised saints were men. The least likely person to become a saint was a married woman.

The official canon of saints gives a distorted view of holiness in our Church. The stories of holy women have largely been forgotten or ignored. And those female saints who were officially recognised were typically hailed for their virginity. Wondrously, two early female martyrs, Perpetua and Felicity, were celebrated as virgins even though both had given birth! The prejudice against sexuality in the Church runs deep.

Feminist scholars, such as Johnson, know the importance of remembering, reclaiming and telling the stories of holy women so “to break the patriarchal silence about the vast heritage of female witness.”

Having read Friends of God and Prophets, I wish to befriend the saints and develop a personal canon of female saints who will help me live faithfully in a violent world where women continue to be disproportionately abused and bear the burden of poverty.

Mary Magdalene is sure to be a favourite in my canon. She, the Apostle to the Apostles, was the first to proclaim the risen Christ. I pray with her that I too be a good news person in how I live and what I write. I imagine Mary and I praying together in the hope that women will soon be called upon to preach in our Church.

Despite no scriptural evidence whatsoever, Mary Magdalene has been maligned by patriarchy as a former prostitute. I wish to recognise Mary and all women who today are maligned online by trolls, bullies and abusers.

Image of St Phoebe the Deacon @ Terry St Ledger 2023/Sisters of the Good Samaritan.

Once again, I honour St Phoebe, a deacon known and honoured by St Paul. Though the Church continues to deny women the sacramental grace of ordination to the diaconate, I pray with Phoebe that women’s full giftedness will one day be recognised.

With Johnson, I wish to remember and honour all the anonymous female saints who were martyred because of their sex. Tens of thousands of women were hunted down, tortured and killed as witches during ecclesial inquisitions. I wish to stand in solidarity with them by lamenting their fate, and that of all victims of female infanticide, rape and domestic violence. I include women who have been denied an education or other means of flourishing, noting that solidarity is not only a feeling; it is also a behaviour. I pray that our lament will spur us to action for justice.

I am adding Zomi Frankcom to my canon. Zomi is the Australian aid worker killed by an Israeli drone strike in Gaza earlier this year. Google her name and you will find images of a beautiful young woman with a vivacious smile. I don’t know the faith tradition, if any, of this courageous and generous woman, but I wish to thank her for her self-sacrifice and align myself with her as caregiver and peacemaker.

As the feast of All Saints approaches on 1 November, it occurs to me that remembering the saints is a source of energy and hope. I imagine them “in our corner” encouraging us to move beyond lamenting the woes of our world. May we, with the power of the same Spirit who inspired them, find good news stories and become the Good News for which we crave.

 

Patty Fawkner

Sister Patty Fawkner is a former Congregational Leader of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan. She is an adult educator, writer and facilitator with formal tertiary qualifications in arts, education, theology and spirituality. Patty is interested in exploring what wisdom the Christian tradition has for contemporary issues. She has an abiding interest in questions of justice and spirituality.

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