Saint Michael’s Church

Serving God and Bishop’s Stortford

Clergy Letter For February 2009

CLERGY LETTER FOR

FEBRUARY 2009

The Revd Darryl Jordan... Snowdrops

In the New Testament every single Christian is referred to as a ‘saint’ including the muddled and sinful ones to whom Paul writes his letters…..Dr N. T. (Tom) Wright, Bishop of Durham.

I recently read his splendid book containing that quote : For All the Saints? Remembering the Christian Departed (London: SPCK, 2003). It's short and I read it cover-to-cover in one sunny sitting in the back garden. I'm writing about it this month since one of saint Tom's points is that All Saints' and All Souls' festivals really ought to be done on one day, which it just so happens we're doing this year at St Michael's on 2^nd November.

All Saints' Day is for recognising all the 'official Saints', that is, those said by the Church certainly to be in Paradise. The easiest way to know whom they are is to look in the telephone directory under 'Saint' - for starters. All Souls' is the day when all souls in Paradise, 'Saint so-and-so' or no, are hailed for homely heroism and simple faith, the small ways they made their faith known, and that not primarily by word and example, but by their Baptism. For in the end, salvation is always God's doing, not ours, no matter how ill or well-intentioned are we. I instruct those for whom I conduct occasional services that we know someone like a babe in arms after Baptism is a Christian based on facts - not feelings. Just as a marriage certificate proves someone is married, or a death certificate that someone is dead, a baptismal certificate proves someone is a Christian.

A press release on 17^th October highlights that truth. The Bishops of the Catholic Church in Poland recently published guidelines on how one may leave the Church, truly 'an offense against God', but a 'natural human right', but that person must remain on the parish records. Church teaching says that Baptism leaves an 'indelible mark', which is highlighted when I say to someone I anoint at Baptism, 'Name, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own forever'. It's a great way to say to parents and Godparents, this is not a baby dedication or a naming ceremony; it's a 'done' deal; this human person is now officially a saint.

Part of my privilege as a priest is to comfort the bereaved. Perhaps I've tried to do that for you when I took a loved one's funeral. If so, you might remember that I speak of the deceased in the present tense, like, 'So it sounds to me like your husband has a wonderful sense of humour!' That's because the Saints Triumphant, all the faithful departed, are conscious and still quite 'themselves'. But like all of us - apart from Jesus and perhaps his mother Mary - they await the final resurrection when we'll get new bodies like Jesus has. When I say Mary might have a 'heavenly' body, that's the majority view amongst Christians; well over a billion believe that Mary was 'assumed into heaven'. This isn't the place to debate that issue, but this article would be incomplete and inconsiderate if I didn't mention it. I should also say that Bishop Tom Wright mentions and denies it. Existence for all human - versus angelic - saints is in three stages:

Earth, 'Saints militant here in earth' as the Prayer Book beautifully puts it: those who were baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity;

Heaven, or better, Paradise, the Saints Triumphant, the baptised faithful departed, 'Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven', says the BCP with such winsome words again;

A new Heaven and new Earth, as Saint John puts it in Revelation 21.1, 'And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.'I think of it this way. I am now (1) a mortal body with an immortal soul; when I die I shall be (2) an immortal soul awaiting its resurrected, immortal body, then I shall finally be (3) an immortal both body and soul. Though reprinted from last year's November Clergy Letter, you'll please forgive me for including a verse from an All Saints' hymn by Lesbia Scott (1898-1986). It sums up the words of Saint Paul the Apostle and saint Tom the Apostles' successor quite beautifully:

They lived not only in ages past,
There are hundreds of thousands still,
The world is bright with the joyous saints
Who love to do Jesus’ will.

You can meet them in school, or
In lanes, or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too.

Darryl

Office Address:

Saint Michael’s Church

Windhill

Bishops Stortford

Hertfordshire

CM23 2ND