I Sing a Song of the Saints of God...

What is a saint?


When I was little, I always thought of people in long robes with glowing circles of light behind their heads that you see in stained glass windows.  They were people who had performed miracles or done really, really good things for a really, really long time.  Easy peasy, right?


As I've grown older, I've thought a lot more about what it means to be a saint.  We're all called to be saints of God.  But how?  Does it require miraculous deeds?  Or do you have to become a martyr?  It seems like such a daunting call.  How can I aspire to follow the example of the saints when they're just so darn good that it makes it so hard?!


I suspect there's something much simpler to it than that.  In the end, the people that we consider saints are nothing more than ordinary people who did extraordinary things.  I think of one of my favorite hymns, "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God." It tells us "You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store, in church, by the sea, in the house next door." So what can we learn from them?  And how can we apply it our world today?


Those are the questions I want to ponder as I take on a large task that I'm scared I won't be able to live up to.  For the next year, I'm going to use Robert Ellsberg's book "All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time" as a guide for exploring what a saint is.  He writes about the major saints and feast days, but also more contemporary figures who might be spiritually inspiring.


I'm going to try to blog about it each day.  It may be nothing more than some questions or a comment or two on a small passage that stands out to me.  But I'm hoping that by blogging it will lend a small measure of accountability that will help me stick to the discipline.


Do I expect anyone to read what I have to say?  Not especially.  What do I expect to gain from the process?  I have no idea.  But I hope that in a year's time, I'll have some sense of what it means to live a life modeled after the saints and how I can live out God's call for me in my life.


I'm going to start on April 1, because what better day to start such an ambitious undertaking than April Fools Day, which also happens to be Maunday Thursday this year.


365 Days, 365 Saints.  Let the fun begin!


I Sing a Song of the Saints of God

Text: Lesbia Scott

I sing a song of the saints of God,

patient and brave and true,

who toiled and fought and lived and died

for the Lord they loved and knew.

And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,

and one was a sheperdess on the green;

they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,

God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,

and his love made them strong;

and they followed the right for Jesus' sake

the whole of their good lives long.

And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,

and one was slain by a fierce wild beast;

and there's not any reason, no, not the least,

why I shouldn't be one too.

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, on the street, in the store,

in church, by the sea, in the house next door;

they are saints of God, whether rich or poor,

and I mean to be one too.