THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS
We have already seen that the evidence
of Scriptures leads us to the assurance that our dear
ones departed are living a vivid, conscious life;
that there is continuance of personal identity.
“I” am still “I,” and that
there is memory still, clear and distinct, of the old
friends and the old scenes on earth.
Section 1
We pass on to consider the relations
between ourselves and them. Do they know now
of our life on earth? Can there be between us
comradeship in any sense? Can there be love and
care and sympathy and prayer between us on these two
sides of the grave, as there is between friends on
earth on the two sides of the Atlantic?
The Church says yes, and calls it
in her creed, the Communion of Saints. The Communion
of Saints a very grand name, but it means
only a very simple thing just loving sympathy
between us and these elder brothers and sisters beyond
the grave.
The term “saint” in the
New Testament only means any poor humble servant of
Christ “set apart” to Him, baptized into
His name. Communion means Fellowship, Comradeship.
Therefore the Communion of Saints simply means fellowship
between Christians, and in church language has come
chiefly to mean fellowship between Christians at this
side and at the other side of death. Knowledge
and comradeship and sympathy and love and prayer between
the church MILITANT on earth and the church EXPECTANT
in Paradise, as they both look forward to the final
joy of the church TRIUMPHANT in Heaven, and meantime
cooeperate one with the other to bring the whole world
within the Kingdom of Christ.
You see that it is a prominent doctrine
of the Church’s creed, and rightly understood,
it is a very beautiful and touching doctrine not
only because of the union of fellowship with our departed but
especially because the bond of that union and fellowship
is our dear Lord Himself, whom we and they alike love
and thank and praise and pray to and worship, and
from whom we and they alike derive the Divine sustenance
of our souls.
You know what a bond of union it is
between two men even to find that they both deeply
honour and admire and love the same friend and benefactor.
They become one in him. The Bible means that,
but a great deal more, when it says we are “one
in Christ Jesus.”
Here on earth, there in Paradise,
is His presence. Here on earth, there in Paradise,
is the love and prayer and praise going forth to Him,
and the strength and power of God coming back from
Him. You know His own simile, “I am the
Vine, ye are the branches.” From the central
Vine the life rises and flows to every farthest branch
and twig and leaf, connecting them all in the one
life. He the Sacred Vine is on earth with us
and in Paradise with them. Some of the branches
are in the shadow here, some of them are in the sunlight
there, but we are all united through the Lord Himself.
He is the Vine, we are the branches. Because
He is with us here, prayer and praise and all the functions
of the Church are here. Because He is with them
in Paradise prayer and praise and all the functions
of the Church go on in Paradise. Every Sunday
as we in our poor way love Him and worship Him and
pray to Him and praise Him, our dear ones beyond are
doing the very same. Notice how in the Communion
Service we remind ourselves of the fact. “Therefore
with angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven
we laud and magnify Thy holy name,” etc.
It is not we alone who feed on His divine life, it
is not the altar on earth alone that communicates
the all-prevailing virtues of the atoning Blood, for
the same Victim is the central object of adoration
beyond, as saints and angels and all redeemed creation
are with us taking up together the chorus of that
everlasting hymn.
If we on this side were living closer
to our Lord and closer to our departed, how close
might that comradeship become! We should tell
our Lord so much about each other. We should
think of each other and remember each other and sympathize
with each other and pray for each other. Why,
we could do everything for each other that we can do
on earth when separated by the Atlantic except
just write home. (Ah, how one wishes that they could
“write home"!) We are very close if we would
but realize it.
“Death hides but it does not divide
Thou art but on Christ’s other side,
Thou art with Christ and Christ with me
In Him I still am close to thee.”
II
Yes, you say, that is a beautiful
thought. But is that all? My poor heart
is craving for more communion than that. Do they
know or care about my love and sorrow to-day?
And are they helping me? Are they praying for
me to that dear Lord whom we both love in
whose presence we both stand to-day? And can
I do anything for them on my side in this “Communion
of Saints”?
Section 1
Do they pray for us or help us in
any way? Does any one need to ask that question?
Since they are with Christ of course
they pray. The world to come is the very atmosphere
of prayer. St. John in his vision tells of “the
offering of the golden vials full of odours which are
the prayers of the saints” (Rev. .
And again three chapters later the angel stood to
offer the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar.
Can you imagine your mother who never
went to bed here without earnest prayer for her boy
going into that life with full consciousness and full
memory of the dear old home on earth, and never a prayer
for her boy rising to the altar of God?
Why, even the selfish Dives, after
death, could not help praying for his brothers.
Aye, she is praying for you.
I think amongst the most precious prayers before
the golden altar are the mother’s prayers for
her boy who is left behind on earth.
Section 2
But, you say, she does not know anything
about my life or my needs on earth. Even if
she did not know she would surely pray for you.
But I am not so sure that she does not know.
There are several hints in Scripture to suggest that
she does know hints so strong that if you
are doing anything now that she would like I should
advise you to keep on doing it and if you are doing
anything now that you would not wish her to know,
I should advise you to stop doing it.
Our Lord represents Abraham as knowing
all about Moses and the prophets who came one thousand
years after his time (St. Luke xv.
Our Lord distinctly tells the Jews
that Abraham in that life knew all about His mission
on earth. “Your Father Abraham rejoiced
to see My day and he saw it and was glad” (St.
John vii.
At the Transfiguration, too, Moses
and Elias came out from that waiting life to speak
with Christ of His decease which He should accomplish
at Jerusalem. Does it not suggest at once that
they and their great comrades within the veil were
watching eagerly and knowing all about the life of
Christ and the great crisis of man’s redemption
towards which they had been working on earth long
years ago. Can any one believe that the whole
Waiting Church within the veil, living, and conscious,
and thinking, and remembering were absolutely ignorant
and unconcerned about the greatest event that ever
came in the history of their race?
The writer in the Epistle to the Hebrews
apparently believed that our departed ones were watching
our course, for after a long list of the great departed
heroes of faith in olden time he writes to encourage
us in the race on earth. “Seeing that
we are encompassed about with so great a cloud of
witnesses let us lay aside every weight and run with
patience the race that is set before us” (Heb.
xi. The picture suggested is that of the
runners in the amphitheatre on earth and the galleries
of Creation crowded with sympathetic watchers like
the “old boys” of a great English school
coming back at the annual school games to cheer on
the lads and remember how they had run themselves long
ago in the very same fields.
III
And the hope which Scripture thus
suggests and never contradicts commends itself to
reason and to the deepest instincts in our hearts.
I think of a mother leaving her children
and going into a full conscious life, where, mark
you, she can still think and remember and love.
I see that her love for them was probably the most
powerful influence in ennobling her life here.
And she has gone into a life where that ennobling
is God’s chief aim for her. Since she can
remember them, I feel quite sure that if she had the
choice she would want to watch over them always.
But, somebody says, she might not
be quite happy if she knew all that they had to go
through. Seeing that at any rate she remembers
them, do you think she would be more happy if she
knew that they might have to go through troubles of
which she could not learn anything? Put yourself
in the place of any mother on earth that you know and
ask if it would make her any happier to stop all letters
about her children whom she felt might be in danger
or trouble. Are you quite sure that in that
spirit life a peaceful contentment like that of the
cow who forgets her calf is the highest thing to be
desired? The higher any soul grows on earth
the less can it escape unselfish sorrow for the sake
of others. Must it not be so in that land also?
Surely the Highest Himself must have more sorrow
than any one else for the sins and troubles of men.
Have you ever thought of that “eternal pain”
of God? If there be joy in His presence over
one sinner that repenteth must there not be pain in
His presence over one that repenteth not?
There are surely higher things in
God’s plans for His saints than mere selfish
happiness and content. There is the blessedness
that comes of sympathy with Him over human sorrow
and pain. We but degrade the thought of the
blessedness of the redeemed when we desire that they
should escape that.
And since in that life she is “with
Christ” and able doubtless to win for her children
more than she could ever win on earth, and since she
knows that Christ is more solicitous for them than
she is herself and that she can trust Him utterly
to do for them more than she can ask or think, does
it not seem far more probable that she should still
know and care and love and pray and share in the care
and sympathy of Christ for them?
Yes, I think probably she does know
about them. I know certainly she prays about
them. I myself hope and believe that some of
the best helps in my life have been won for me by
those on the other side who love me and who are so
near to their Lord.
Section 2
And it is a strong confirmation of
that belief when I find it the belief of the great
bishops and teachers of the early Church in its purest
and most loving days, the days nearest to those of
Christ and His apostles.
St. Cyprian the martyr bishop of Carthage
who was born in the century after St. John’s
death (A. D. 200) made an agreement with his friend
Cornelius that whichever of them died first should
in the Unseen Land remember in prayer him who was
left behind. “Let us mutually be mindful
of each other.... On both sides let us always
pray for each other, let us relieve our afflictions
and distresses by a reciprocity of love and whichever
of us goes hence before the other by the speed of
the Divine favour, let our affection continue before
the Lord, let not prayer for our brothers and sisters
cease before the mercy of the Father” (Ep. lvii.
ad Cornel.). And in the days of the plague at
Carthage, A. D. 252, he comforts his fellow citizens
reminding them of “the large number of dear
ones, parents, brothers, children, a goodly and numerous
crowd longing for us and while their own immortality
is assured still longing for our salvation.”
Origen, who was a contemporary of
Cyprian, says, “All the souls who have departed
this life still retaining their love for those who
are in the world concern themselves for their salvation
and aid them by their prayers and mediation with God.
For it is written in the Book of the Maccabees, ’This
is Jeremiah the prophet who always prays for the people’”
(in Cant. Hom. iii.). And in another work
he says, “It is my opinion that all those fathers
who have fallen asleep before us fight on our side
and aid us by their prayers” (in Jesu Nave Hom.
xvi. ch. 19). And again “They (in
that unseen life) understand who are worthy of Divine
approval and are not only well disposed to these themselves,
but cooeperate with them in their endeavours to please
God, they seek His favour on their behalf and with
their prayers and intercessions they join their
own.” And again, “These (in the Unseen
Life) pray for us and bring help to our perishable
race, and if I may so speak, take up arms alongside
of it” (Contra Celsum vii.
St. Gregory Nazianzen is preaching
the funeral sermon of St. Basil. “He still
prays for the people,” he says, “for he
did not so leave us as to have left us altogether.”
And in his funeral sermon over his own father, “I
am satisfied that he accomplishes there now by his
prayers more than he ever did by his teaching just
in proportion as he approaches nearer to God after
having shaken off the fetters of his body.”
St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, in
his Catechetical lectures, and St. Chrysostom in several
of his homilies speak of the help we get through the
prayers of departed holy men.
St. Ambrose in his great grief at
his brother’s death, says: “What
other consolation is left me but this that I hope to
come to thee my brother speedily, that thy departure
will not entail a long separation between us, and
that power may be granted me by thy intercessions
that thou mayest summon me who long to join thee more
speedily.”
St. Jerome, who gave us the Vulgate,
the great Revised Bible of the Western Church, is
comforting a mother who has lost a daughter.
“She entreats the Lord for thee and begs for
me the pardon of my sins.” Again to another
friend, Heliodorus, he speaks of the life after death.
“There you will be made a fellow burgher with
St. Paul. There also you will seek for your
parents the rights of the same citizenship. There
too you will pray for me who spurred you on to victory.”
Again he vigorously disputes with Vigilantius who
asserts that prayers and intercessions must
cease after death. “If the apostles and
martyrs while still in the body are able to pray for
others ... how much more may they do so now....
One man, Moses, obtains from God pardon for 600,000
men in arms; and Stephen, the imitator of his Lord,
begs forgiveness for his persecutors; shall their
power be less after they have begun to be with Christ?"
Section 3
But sympathy and prayer must not be
on one side only. It must be mutual in the Communion
of Saints. They remembering and loving, and
thinking about us. We remembering and loving,
and thinking about them. They asking from their
Lord blessing for us. We asking from Him blessing
for them. For surely they are not above wanting
His blessings still not even the best of
them though safe with Him, though forgiven their sins,
they are still imperfect, still needing to grow in
grace, in purification, in fitness for the final heaven
by and by. And we can help their growth as they
can help ours.
Some of the most deeply religious
people that I know shrink from the thought of prayer
for the departed. There has been reason for it.
This beautiful old custom, the custom of the Jews,
the custom of the whole Christian Church till the
Reformation had grown at that time into great corruption.
And one danger of great corruption is that indignant
reformers are likely to tear away more than the corruption,
“hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”
So it was here. Because of the abuse men feared
even the use. In their hatred of the sordid
traffic in masses for the dead they looked with suspicion
on any prayer for the departed. And at length
men began to think that such prayers were even wrong.
Ah, it was a pity! Our departed
ones have more quickly passed into oblivion.
The great Paradise life has almost faded from our
view. We are the more lonely in our desolate
bereavement. Perhaps our dear ones beyond are
the more lonely, too, if they know about our life and
our prayers on earth. A friend said to me lately,
“I was a little child when the news came of
father’s death far away. That night in
my prayers I prayed for father as usual. But
my aunt stopped me. ‘Darling,’ she
said, ‘you must not pray for father now; it is
wrong.’ And I can remember still how I
shrank back feeling as if some one had slammed the
door and shut him outside.”
I think we should be happier and better,
I think the Unseen World would come back more clearly
on our horizon if we kept our dear ones in our prayers
as we used to do before they died. Do not keep
any hidden chambers in your hearts shut out from Christ.
Bring your dear departed ones to Him as you bring
all else to Him. He knows what is best for them.
Pray only for that. Pray “Lord help them
to grow closer to Thee. Help them if it may
be to help others and make them happy in Thy great
Kingdom until we meet again.” Pray something
like that. Oh, how can you help doing it if
you love them and believe in prayer?
How can I cease to pray for thee?
Somewhere
In God’s wide universe thou art
to-day.
Can He not reach thee with His tender
care?
Can He not hear me when for thee I pray?
Somewhere thou livest and hast need of
Him,
Somewhere thy soul sees higher heights
to climb,
And somewhere, too, there may be valleys
dim
Which thou must pass to reach the heights
sublime.
Then all the more because thou canst not
hear
Poor human words of blessing will I pray.
O, true brave heart, God bless thee wheresoe’er
In God’s wide universe thou art
to-day!