November 9, 2011

This past Sunday we celebrated the Solemnity of All Saints’ Day, a day when we remember all of the faithfully departed who have gone on before us.  These faithful include apostles, martyrs, theologians, politicians, nuns, monks, laypeople and even tax collectors; we recognize some of these figures but others have been forgotten over the centuries.  Nevertheless, as Father Moyer said in Sunday’s Catechism class, we must remember them and actively reflect on their lives.  Collectively, their examples have yielded a repository of wisdom that, with continued study, will better equip us in our own journeys toward God.  We are One Body, and yet we as the living, breathing church militant have much to learn from our faithfully departed predecessors, who continue to join the ever-growing church expectant and church triumphant.

In our recent Catechism classes, we have discussed this three-fold nature of the Church several times in preparation for All Saints’ Day.  As a recent college graduate, I’m used to being a student and therefore, this charge to learn from the church expectant and the church triumphant does not surprise me.  In fact, it is deeply comforting.  Knowing that God has provided the church militant with centuries upon centuries of examples of His faithful people is surely a gracious, inspiring gift.  Yet, at the same time, it is also a mystery to me.  How can the church militant tap into this repository of wisdom?  How do the church militant, expectant and triumphant work together as One Body?  What does this look like in everyday life?

These questions have already emerged several times in our Catechism classes over the past few weeks.  In the thoughtful, animated discussions that followed, Father Moyer and others pointed out that the lives of the faithfully departed serve as a valuable guide — or a Tradition — for the church militant to uphold and follow.  This point has resonated with me now for some time and I am continually reminded of one who has already faithfully departed the church militant:  G.K. Chesterton.  In his work Orthodoxy, Chesterton made some very valuable comments about the role of Tradition in the Church.  As faithful members of the present church militant and of the future churches expectant and triumphant, I hope it will be as illuminating for you as it has been for me in considering the deep significance of All Saints’ Day. 

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors.  It is the democracy of the dead.  Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.  All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death...  I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea.  We will have the dead at our councils.  The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones.  It is all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballot papers, are marked with a cross."   - G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy