Today the Church celebrates All Saints' Day. Robert Ellsburg, a Catholic writer long associated with the Catholic Worker movement, describes saints: "Each one offers a unique glimpse of the face of God; each enlarges our moral imagination; each offers new insights into the meaning and possibilities of human life." We don't all like all of the saints. But there is such a variety that it is not difficult for any of us to have a few favourites. Some saints were controversial in life. Ours being a universal Church, there are even saints whose canonization has caused controversy. Let's look at a few of these unique glimpses of the face of God.
Among the most recent canonizations, on October 18, 2015, were Louis and Marie-Zelie Martin, the parents of the universally venerated Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower. They are the first married couple to have this honour bestowed upon them. They had nine children, four of whom died at a young age, the other five becoming nuns. In his homily at the canonization, Pope Francis, spoke of their creation, day by day, of "an environment of faith and love which nurtured the vocations of their daughters." Their example may not be easy, but it's an example of a family with joys, misfortunes and the loss of four children. I can't imagine anyone who would see controversy in the canonization of Louis and Marie-Zelie Martin.
However, another recent canonization has had plenty of controversy associated with it. Junipero Serra was canonized on September 23, 2015 during Pope Francis' visit to the United States. Serra is often referred to as "the evangelizer of the west" because of his work in helping establish the Spanish missions in California in the 18th century. He was a Franciscan from Spain who helped with the spread of these missions from San Diego to San Francisco. The missions were primarily designed to bring the Catholic faith to the indigenous peoples of the area. Therein lies the controversy surrounding his canonization. Descendants of those indigenous peoples criticize Serra's treatment of their ancestors and associate him with the suppression of their culture. Many indigenous peoples saw the canonization as honouring the actions of a brutal colonizer.
A final illustration is Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement. She was an American journalist and social activist who converted to the Catholic faith. The Church has opened the cause for her possible canonization and she is referred to as Servant of God. The Catholic Worker movement is a pacifist movement that combines direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf. She is generally seen as the most famous radical in American Catholic Church history. Pope Benedict XVI used her conversion story as an example of how to journey towards faith in a secularized environment.
Pope Francis referred to Day when he addressed the United States Congress on September 24, 2015: "Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints." Some members of the Catholic Worker movement object to the canonization process as a contradiction of Day's concerns. Late in her life, when people described her as a "living saint," she suggested that doing that was a way of dismissing her.
This is a day to commemorate the saints and to open ourselves to see something of God's goodness in each one of them. Let's pray for the grace to learn God's ways from the lives of the saints.