Meditations on the Solemnity of All Saints: Actualizing Free Exercise of Veneration by Means of a Purgatorial Disposition

Meditations on the Solemnity of All Saints

Actualizing Free Exercise of Veneration by Means of a Purgatorial Disposition 

• Introduction

• Analyzing Current Expectations of Sainthood Regarding All Saint’s Day

• The Process of Canonization: A Process of Process more than Product 

• The Drawbacks of the “Safe Bet” and the  Purgatorial Disposition

• The Paradox of the Universal Offer of Salvation and the Narrow Gate

• Five Modal Expansions Concerning Effective Sanctity

• The Nonymous Saints and the Mythic Saints

• The Harrowing of Hell and the Proto-Christian Saints

• The Candidate Saints and the Crypto-Catechumen Saints

• Conclusion

Introduction

When I was a child I remember learning about “All Saints Day”.  It was described to me as the day we celebrate all the other saints who we don’t celebrate throughout the rest of the year.  In my childhood mind, each day had one saint attached to it.  I knew there were 365 days in a year and that the Church talked about many more than 365 saints.  So I thought it was good that there was a day for the rest of them, though it stunk for them that they were all lumped on the same day.  Then I was further enlightened by a middle school teacher concerning this holiday.  Actually, this holiday was for all the saints that “we don’t even know about” as a church, “Like your gramma!”  That was the example, “like your gramma”.  When speaking of All Saints Day, it’s always “your gramma”.  It’s not that that is a bad example, the holiday is closely linked to various holidays that remember ancestors, most notably all souls day.  And it is unlikely that the Church will canonize my grandmother, though she seemed like a good person to me.  But this solemnity offers the opportunity for so much more than a glance back one generation.  It offers an opportunity to ponder the mercy of God, the goodness of humanity throughout history, and, most uniquely, it is the one day that the marginalized church, the laity, is granted permission to officially honor our heroes.  The day offers the charism of soteriological speculation without reprisal.  In the Catholic Church, the uniqueness of lay empowerment absent clerical oversight should be cherished.

The purpose of this treatise is to explore the possibilities of salvation through the lens of All Saint’s Day and offer categories of engagement for the solemnity that should help the reader cultivate an expansive approach to this solemnity.  In the end, the reader should develop a purgatorial disposition that offers skills for recognizing the mercy of God and seeking intercession of the Church triumphant in a more radical and far reaching way.

In the first section of this treatise, we will discuss the current process of canonization and how the canon offers a “safe list” of saints for veneration and to seek intercessions from.  We will then discuss the drawbacks to the assumption that the official canon of saints is an exclusive list and develop the spiritual skill of a purgatorial disposition.  This disposition helps us remember that the saints were not perfect during their earthy life and helps us recognize the potential sanctity of any person. Lastly, we will comment on the tension between Christ’s sacrificial death for all mankind and the “narrow gate” to salvation.

In the second section, we will seek to expand our understanding of who could be venerated as a saint and celebrated on the Feast of All Saints Day.  We will begin by meditating on the nonymous and mythic saints.  These saints are the saints for whom we have names but no real hagiography, or the saints that we have elaborate archetypal hagiographies for, but no historical grounding.  These two varieties remind us of the mysterious nature of salvation as an individual or archetypal reality.  Considering them helps us move beyond the common stalwart saintly examples that any Catholic would be aware of.  Next, we will engage in a meditation on the Harrowing of Hell and from that derived the category proto-Christian Saints.  These are saints who lived before the incarnation. The Harrowing and the existence of these saints remind us of the expansive reach of Christ’s sanctifying death.  Christ’s sacrifice is not bound to the jurisdiction of the institutional church. With that knowledge, we will lastly discuss two possible varieties of post incarnation saints that lay outside the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, candidate saints, and crypto-catechumen saints.  These are post-incarnational saints of other Christian traditions or those who are not baptized by water but are baptized by desire.   

Analyzing Current Expectations of Sainthood Regarding All Saint’s Day

The Process of Canonization: A Process of Process more than Product

 

One of the unusual things about the Solemnity of All Saints is the trust it puts in the laity to govern their own affairs.  There is little guidance on who or how to honor, venerate, or seek intercession from.  As far as I can tell there are no official guidelines on how to do this.  It is up to the individual or community (family or consecrated), or church community, as to what they are going to do.  That could pan out to a mass collective to “All Saints” or it could narrow down on a favorite person who has not been officially recognized but one feels is in heaven.  

Rare as it may be, this trust and authority is not unheard of otherwise.  It took some time for a “process” of canonization to develop in the Church and many of the great saints in the calendar are “pre congregation” saints.  This means that they were never officially canonized by a pope.  Rather their devotion springs whole from the bottom up and holds its merit simply on that grassroots rather than any promulgation.  As the Church grew, there was some need for regulation and validation. The responsibility of validation ultimately fell on the shoulders of the local bishop.  The people would bring their case to him and upon his investigation and declaration, the saint would be publicly recognized.  It was not until the tenth century, full halfway through the history of the Church, that any pope canonized a saint, that being Pope John XV’s canonization of Saint Ulric on January 31, 993.  From there a process of investigation was developed and ultimately codified for canonization.

The process still begins with the devotion of the people and them coming to their bishop for recognition of the sanctity of their patron.  Once the bishop has investigated and approved, he hands the case of the deceased, now considered a “Servant of God” over to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. This congregation conducts a rigorous investigation that results in the deceased being declared “venerable”.  After this, the requirement to move from venerable to one of the beati is a confirmed miracle.  That means the purported miracle must be investigated and verified as not explainable by natural occurrences, unless the beati is a martyr, then no miracle is required.  Once a “venerable” becomes a “blessed”, the option is open to official, public, veneration, but in a limited way.  Veneration is usually restricted to the diocese, eparchy, region, or religious community in which the Blessed lived.  For any beati to be canonized, martyr or confessor, another miracle is required.  This miracle must be attributed to the intercession of the Blessed and having occurred after his or her beatification. Canonization of the beati allows for the public veneration of the, now, Saint by the Universal Church. 

It is not fairly common knowledge that the “canon” (that is, the official list) of saints is not exclusive. That is to say, there are, presumably, more saints in heaven than those declared saints by the Holy See.  This should be obvious given that for there to be all the preliminary venerations and intercession, which must be successful for the saint to be “declared”, they must already be in heaven before the declaration.  But there is a general assumption against any layperson engaging in speculation concerning who may be in heaven, with the curious exception of deceased relatives.  The safe route is to assume recourse to a canonized saint.  

The metric for investment seems to be how closely the person can relate to the deceased personally. So for a person to say, for example, that they believed that their grandfather was in heaven is seen as good piety.  For them to say that they believe their deceased local bishop or consecrated religion teacher was in heaven starts to get a little suspiciously speculative. But this is still in the realm of good taste.  For them to spout off their soteriological speculations concerning a deceased public figure, starts to get met with suspicious hostility.  This may even be the case for Servants of God and Vernarables.  The hierarchy likes to keep these cases confined to local public veneration.  There is a bias in the hierarchy against overreach regarding celestial companionship.

But the process of canonization, though validating, is not “effective”.  That is to say, the process neither offers access to heaven nor does it make a person a saint.  It simply recognizes what is necessarily already the case.  The operable assumption that the canonized are the only saints available for recourse works against the assumptions of the actual process of canonization.  Then there is the assumption that if a deceased is not “in the process” they are not in heaven, and not available for relationship, intercession, or recourse.  This is also a ridiculous assumption because to even start the process assumes that such relationship, intercession, and recourse is available.  However, it is true that such relationships and intercessions are generally private or at least held by a small group that is somehow connected to the deceased and not “public” in the life of the Church.

This public restriction seems important because public veneration offers some sort of endorsement and the Church cannot be seen to endorse the wrong thing.  But in reality, it is only an endorsement of the best evidence that a person has made it to heaven.  The lynchpin of that evidence is miraculous intercession after death.  But it must be remembered that canonization is not a claim of a perfect life on earth.  It is a stalwart Catholic belief that deathbed conversions are possible.  A person can live a wretched life and believe all the wrong things, but accept the grace of justification just as they are dying and still be saved.  Saint Dismas the Good Thief is the primal example.  The first person Jesus personally invites into heaven is not a role model in terms of thought or manner of his life.  Only in his penitence and acceptance of grace at the very last moment of his life.  We can look to Doctors of the Church as having universal applicability of their teaching, but even these are not necessarily free from error or at least being interpreted erroneously.  No saint lives the perfect life and many lead lives that are moral or spiritual disasters.  The saints are people to whom we relate. They are perfect in heaven, but they were not on earth.  And we are not perfect on earth either, so the relationship we have with them cannot be assumed to be perfect. It turns out that the only surety we are getting from the Church is that the particularly canonized are in heaven and we can seek relationship with them.  But then, there is also the curious imprimatur of All Saints Day that reminds us that there is a celestial population far beyond the canonized.

The Drawbacks of the “Safe Bet” and the Purgatorial Disposition

The operable assumption that the canonized are the only saints springs from a “safe bet” mentality, but it comes with many unintended and negative consequences.  One source of these unintended consequences is that the process of canonization is not an active quest for truth of the residency of heaven in any complete way.  Rather, it is an economic and terrestrial process that takes a motivated and financially capable base and a hierarchy that wishes to push the narrative that is suggested by the life of the saint.  The narrative control seems an odd concern given everything we just observed given the possibilities of life on earth of a saint.  But even there, I as the author was sculpting a soteriological narrative.  It is not a bad thing at all to hold hagiography up as a template for life.  The hagiographies of the saints are many-varied because they have been defined and approved over the course of two millennia.  So no one particular concern seems to exclusively dominate.  But certain themes are obviously preferred.  

This is because the “political” aspect of a canonization is a human process, not a divine one.  It is a human endeavor, based on human observations of evidence and human selection of what deceased to seek to observe.  There are cultural and institutional biases at play.  These biases have nothing to do with who makes it into heaven, only with those the Church deems a “safe bet” for intercession.  Then, on top of the actual canonization, there is the promotion of a core group of the canonized over the vast majority of others.  So certain saints are promoted as intellectual powerhouses (Augustine, Aquinas) and others are promoted as powerhouses of devotion (Pio, Bernadette).  It is easy to simplify the more than 10,000 canonized saints down to a few tokens.  But this reveals an extremely terrestrial and pedagogical function rather than any relational notion of the saints.

The function comes to be a demonstration of a virtue or moral mode rather than a relationship with a person.  Couple this with the biases of the institutions and we get a profound number of consecrated and ordained saints as opposed to married and sexually active saints.  We get a profound number of European saints as opposed to any other continent (the hyper-venerated especially tend to be European traditionally).  This exclusivity mindset tends to instill the assumption that the virginal European is the most holy specimen of humanity.  It can even lead to an assumption that it is unholy to be otherwise.  But simply reflecting on this consciously should dispel the idea immediately.  Ethnicity or geo-specific location of genitalia are not objective factors in soteriology.  The objective factors are sincerity of conscience and employment of will as one relates to Christ.  These unseen factors are not easy to judge or teach through life events in hagiography.  At best one can spin the hagiography as a means of guidance on the sincerity of conscience and use of will.  Often hagiographies are selectively marshaled for completely ulterior motives (that is not to say that even these motives are necessarily bad). But these purposes are not the main point of canonization.  The main purpose is the “safe bet” approach to celestial relationships.

The most damaging consequence of this is the assumption here and now that celibate and euro-centric modes of being and expressions are somehow objectively holy or prone to salvation.  Also, the spin of hagiography that extols the life of the saint as “already” perfect can lead to a feeling that perfection can be attained here and now, and unintentionally promote rigorist views and Pelagianism.  It may also give us the impression that our imperfect friends, who may not appear the most moral or may not be virginal Europeans, are not possible candidates for veneration on All Saints day.  A further consequence of that is how this view may gear us to disregard our neighbor, who is imperfect, as a saint in progress.  This consequence makes for undignified regard for our neighbor and thus has real moral consequences here and now.  

To mitigate this we might suggest, as an aside, a meditation on All Saints Day’s sister holiday All Souls Day.  This is the day (along with the entire month of November) that we particularly pray for all the souls in purgatory.  As we noted in the treatise Calculated Demonic Attunement

One thing is for sure, there will probably be a surprising amount of purgatory in store for every soul after the personal judgment. Purgatory purifies us of the negative effects, the poor habituation of all of our evil deeds.  These habituations would take place whether or not we willfully or knowingly did the actions… Thus, purgatory purifies the effect of our venial sin and purifies us from the effect of evil we do, which, though not known or chosen, still has a habituating effect.  This purification takes time because we are temporal creatures.  It may be a long time, but that length is a result of the wide field of salvation.  All the circumstances that can be damaging, but not damning need to be rectified.       

By praying for the souls in purgatory we are reminded that (probably the vast majority of) the saints in heaven passed through this purification.  They had to spend time being purified of their disordered habituations and their ideas that were off the mark.  It is doubtful any person dies perfectly habituated or with a perfect understanding in intellect.  Praying for the souls in purgatory reminds us that we are certainly on a trajectory to heaven through this waystation.  It also reminds us that all those we see as “evil sinners” or “backward heretics” could very easily be on this same trajectory.  Their evil and heresy could be no worse than our own.  When we regard our neighbor with a purgatorial disposition, we remember God’s mercy and patience with us, and extend that same mercy and patients to others.  This goes for morality, action, virtuous disposition, and knowledge and understanding of the Faith.  We tend to see ourselves as perfect in all these ways, and as such, we tend to lash out at those who are different from us, because they are not “perfect like I am”.  A purgatorial disposition recalls in our minds the developmental nature of becoming a saint, and of accepting grace as opposed to earning it, both in ourselves and in others.  

Importantly for this treatise, the purgatorial disposition reminds us that saints were not perfect in their lives.  None of them spoke ex-cathedra simply because they were a saint.  Their lives and writings happen in a context, and their reaction to that context may be appropriate in the context, but disproportionate to paradise, thus purgation is necessary.  So, as we note, their lives need to be taken into account.  Again, the Church canonizes for safety but promotes a few that it deems as most generally applicable.  That approach is not unwise, but here again, we see a drawback.  The few promoted become lessons as opposed to people we relate to.  The strictest foundational metric for veneration from the beginning (close relationship) is lost to abstraction and pedagogy.          

To balance this we have our peculiar feast, a feast that reverses all of the assumptions we have been exposing.  All Saints Day is a day when the power structure of veneration is turned upside down.  On this day, the agenda of veneration works from the bottom up.  The laity and small communities choose the devotion and veneration.  They make a judgment based on their best evidence, either of a person they knew personally, or the testimony of their family, or the testimony of culture.  Is it possible that that person did not make it to heaven?  Yes, it is possible.  Thus, All Souls Day operates in conjunction if there is doubt.  But, in the case of sincerity, God hears our prayers.  True and sincere devotion is never wasted.  Even if it is based on faulty assumptions, like a sincere but erroneous conscience, it is still beneficial to follow.  God in heaven takes note, and doubtless, some others are there to stand in, in case of a mistake.  This is what the mutual members of the mystical body do for each other.

The exercise of a  purgatorial disposition teaches us that our comprehension of the saved is limited and conditioned.  The second section of this treatise is intended to be an exercise in expanding our understanding of and engagement with the saints, if not as prospects of canonization, then at least as persons of veneration on All Saints day.  But before we begin that section it may help to take stock of the soteriological terrain in order to have a firm grounding for our expansion.           

 

The Paradox of the Universal Offer of Salvation and the Narrow Gate

We are seeking an expansive view of the communion of saints.  In order to do that we should address the belief that few are saved and many are damned.  Saint Agustine is famous for his defense of the few who are saved versus the many who are damned.  He states in his sermon, 

  

“Lord, it was said, are there few that be saved? What said the Lord to this? He did not say, “Not few, but many are they who are saved.” He did not say this. But what said, when He had heard, Are there few that be saved? “Strive to enter by the strait gate.” When you hear then, Are there few that be saved? the Lord confirmed what He heard. Through the strait gate but few can enter. In another place He says Himself, Strait and narrow is the way which leads unto life, and few there be that go thereby: but broad and spacious is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be which walk thereby. Why rejoice we in great numbers? Give ear to me, you few. I know that you are many, who hear me, yet but few of you hear to obey.

 

It may help to look directly at the passage Augustine is discussing, Luke chapter 13

 

Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’

 

Our question may be, “What is the gate?”  It is obviously not a physical gate of any kind, but some sort of spiritual metaphor. The readiest answer is that the gate is Christ himself.  After all, he says as much in John’s Gospel, chapter 10,

 

So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came [before me] are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

 

These two, lined up together, seem to make it seem as though few seek Christ, and the seeking and the work in that seeking is the narrow way. In fact, Augustine makes this point in his homily, “Why rejoice we in great numbers? Give ear to me, you few. I know that you are many, who hear me, yet but few of you hear to obey.”  But Christ, the gate is narrow, not the seeking of him. A commonality between the two passages may help our understanding.

Both passages have an odd focus that Augustine leaves unmentioned in his homily, a focus on theft and misuse of the path to the gate.  When one focuses on this commonality, one can easily begin to sculpt an interpretation where the problem is one of personal striving and self-reliance rather than submission and acceptance.  The question revolves around how many will be “saved”, that is, how many will be offered grace.  Jesus seems to answer a different question, “can I save myself?”.  He offers warnings against “your” effort to strive to enter.  The thieves and robbers try to reach salvation against the wishes of the shepherd, just as many wish to dine with the master absent any true relationship with him.  This is the exact problem of Pelagius and of the pharisaical party.  In Luke’s gospel, Jesus draws this exact point out by noting that “people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.”  The picture here seems to imply many people will enter, people who were not given access to the Law, by which the Pharisees feel they are (self)justified.  Those left wailing and gnashing their teeth are those who felt they could strive on their own power to enter the gate without a relationship with the shepherd or the master.  

It is the same image from Revelations Chapter 7, where, after conveying the roster of the Army of Israel, the visionary describes it thusly, “After this, I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.”  Augustine himself is forced to contend with this “multitude.  His answer is, “ But the few are themselves the many; few in comparison of the lost, many in the society of the Angels.” Augustine appeals to the relative nature of the numbers compared.  What he does not contend with is that no one in any of these passages is actually talking about percentages or numbers.  Augustine says in his homily, “it was said, are there few that be saved? What said the Lord to this? He did not say, Not few, but many are they who are saved. He did not say this.”  But, neither did Jesus say, “Yes! Few are saved!”.  Jesus is asked, “are many saved?” and his answer comes in the form of advice, “Strive!” followed by an admonition,  “many won’t be able to do it themselves”, which would mean that they require salvation, not that they are not saved.  The admonition may come from an acute observation; to even ask the question”are many saved?” seems to imply that one may be “playing the odds on salvation”.  They may be looking for, “yes, many are saved” so that they can take their ease. Or that may be looking for “few are saved” so, trusting in their own merit, they look down on those who they see as “not making the cut”.  Jesus gives an answer that deals with both problems.  First, the admonition, then the debilitating necessity of “salvation” because our efforts are pathetic.  But he does not mention numbers or percentages.  

What we do know is what we read in Hebrews 2, “We have seen Jesus crowned with glory and splendor because he submitted to death; by God’s grace, he had to experience death for all mankind. As it was his purpose to bring a great many of his sons into glory”. The “number” mentioned in Revelations Chapter 7 is “one hundred and forty-four thousand marked”, but the multitude is one “which no one could count”.  This contrast shows that numbers are not the issue.  The issue is the comparison between those who wash their clothes in the blood of the Lamb and those who strive by their own will in the confines of the Law.  Hyperfocus on numbers and percentages seems to only produce damaging distraction from beatitude.   

 

This is a theme that Augustine, Doctor of Grace terror of Pelagius the heretic, is well familiar with.  Did he misread the passage?  Would he have been on better ground with Matthew 7 where Jesus specifically says, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”, but even there where the passage states, “those who find it are few”, the context is still a matter of trust because just before that passage Jesus states, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”   Which pits those who seek vs those who trust against one another.  It seems Augustine of all people would be able to see that what is at stake here is self-reliance versus acceptance of salvation.  He above all should know that salvation is offered freely, more so than we deserve, and our own effort is minimal. So was Saint Augustine being contradictory? Did he simply not see?  I doubt it.  He knows the magnitude of Grace, but he also knows the weight of original sin in the form of concupiscence. This is a homily for his flock, not a treatise against an educated heretic bishop.  I believe Saint Augustine is being pastoral.  He does not want his flock to fall into a presumption of God’s mercy.  Therefore he focuses his approach on the work to be done. We must pray as if everything depends on God and work as if everything depends on us.  Jesus took the same strategy in the scripture, “strive” was also his opening admonition. 

The “gate” is Christ and a relationship with him that understands that we must strive, and knock, and then he will open the door, that is, he will save us.  It is foolish to think that “few are saved” because God does not want to save us, “God does not desire that any should perish (the death of a sinner)”.  So the work is on our end and we must do it.  But we cannot conceive that “we do the work” of salvation, for to be saved is an act of mercy upon one, not an act of virtue one does for one’s self. Which leads us to Christ’s saving presence in the Church.

Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, outside of the Church there is no salvation.  If we cannot set numbers or percentages, then at least we can agree that baptism into the Church is required for salvation.  From that it seems we then can play a little bit of a numbers game and see how many people are Catholic compared to the numbers of humans who were not baptized and find that Augustine was objectively correct, “ But the few are themselves the many; few in comparison of the lost, many in the society of the Angels.”  But here again, we find a stumbling block. Certainly, the reader is aware that there are three kinds of baptism, Water, Fire, and Desire.  It is in these three kinds that we find our expansive grasp and the communion of saints.  Baptism by water is the ordinary form, and is what most of us consider as “baptism”.  Baptism by blood (or fire) is granted to one who willingly dies for love of God or love of one’s neighbor.  That it is “granted” is not unique to Blood/Fire.  All three baptisms are a grace and gift of access to God’s saving grace.  They are each the sign of the “knock” which opens the door.  The last is the Baptism by desire as was described in the treatise Ordinary and Extraordinary Religions,

 

The conception of this form of baptism starts at the beginning of Christian history, where people sometimes delayed baptism for a time as they were catechized.  If they died prematurely, and never received baptism by water, and baptism is necessary for salvation, then the math says they are received into perdition.  However, even so early in church history it was noted that the desire for baptism, which is in effect a desire for God’s saving action, is a form of baptism itself.  Once again this is not dependent on knowledge of God, but on the circumstances, intention, or desire, and will of the recipient.  A narrow view of this applies it to only those among the catechumenate who die prematurely.  However, the Church extends this type of baptism to “every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it.”  The catechism asserts that such a person can be saved through baptism by desire.  (CCC 1260)  

 

We went on to discuss in that treatise the epistemological concerns we have regarding what it means to be, “ignorant of the gospel of Christ and his church.”  I dare say that phrase not only covers most non-Christians but also a large majority of Christians as well.  To know something means that the object of knowledge is true and that you believe it is true.  The criteria for “knowledge” puts any true non-believers in a position to experience baptism by desire.  It is incumbent on the believer to help them experience the knowledge of the Gospel (believe in its truth). But if we fail, God will not fail His child, the non-believer because of our incompetence.
A non-believer who truly seeks the Truth, seeks Christ, objectively whether they know it or not.  If they are open to objective truth and not locked in their own way they are open to Christ and desire him.  Their grasp on that truth may be coming from other means than the specific revelation of the Church, and therefore it may be piecemeal or clouded.  But if they are looking outward rather than self validating, they are looking to the Logos that created and sustains the cosmos.  They are seeking the transcendent and therefore they have a desire to know Christ, though they do not know him by that name.  Baptism by water is preferable to baptism by desire.  The water is where the desire leads.  But if baptism is defined as the grace to seek Christ through his mystical body the Church, then the openness of baptism by desire fulfilled the basic requirement.  Extra ecclesiam nulla salus yes.  But do not assume an institutional juridical definition of the Church when making this statement.  To do such would assume only water was operable for granting entrance to the Church.  Rather, a mystical body approach reminds one that sincere relationship with Christ (even if it is not founded on perfect knowledge) binds one to the body.

An excellent example of a saint who is canonized, but did not seem to be a catechumen and had no baptism except desire would be the story of  Saint Genesius of Rome.  Genesius was an actor who was employed to act in a series of plays that mocked Christianity. One day while performing in a work that made fun of Baptism he had a conversion experience.  In that moment he realized the truth of the gospel and had a conversion experience on stage. It was no doubt his openness to seeking truth that allowed him to see the gospel for what it is.  Had he been closed off and stiffnecked he would have remained simply an actor.  Genesius announced his new faith from the stage and refused to renounce it, even when ordered to do so by emperor Diocletian.  Before he received any formal baptism or even catechesis he was tortured and executed.  It is very unclear exactly what aspect of the gospel, what knowledge, or what experience it was that enlightened him.  We are only left to trust that his desire to know Christ was his knock at the door. When he asked for baptism and an actor dressed as a priest gave him a “mock” baptism, it was effective through Genesius’ desire.  The same story is repeated for Saint Porphyrius of Rome under Julian the Apostate.

This is an explicit example of a canonized saint that received a baptism by desire previous to his martyrdom.  There were no clerics and there was no catechesis involved.  It can only be assumed that there are other, less explicit cases; a possibility we will elaborate on in the next section.  That said, isn’t everyone seeking the truth? Is salvation so easy as to simply accept it?  If that were the case, wouldn’t everyone simply accept it? The answer is, “who knows?”  The offer of salvation extends to all of humanity. The requirement is to accept that offer and then cooperate, to the best of one’s ability, with the grace offered.  This allows for sanctification.

Again, in the next section, we will dramatically expand the common notion of who could be a saint.  It must be remembered that all of humanity benefits from the sacrifice of Christ. Whether all humanity accepts the benefit is contingent on each individual human.  Christ’s offer of salvation is different from any help we offer each other as humans.  It is universally offered and (if accepted) effective.  Our help is targeted.  It is offered to specific people, for specific reasons, and we may not even be able to repair it; given our lack of knowledge and skill.  But Christ offers complete aid and restoration, complete redemption, and fulfillment to both individuals and humanity as a whole.

Does this mean that “all will be saved”?  Who knows.  Again, by wondering such a question one seems to want to hedge one’s bets.  One must acknowledge the possibility of hell or one disavows free will. We do have the possibility of ultimately rejecting God’s mercy and offer of grace.  Given the evidence, most of us will have a long and arduous process of purgation before entering the kingdom.  But purgation is not damnation, so in this case, such souls are pilgrim saints on our way to the kingdom. Lastly, one must acknowledge the possibility of universal salvation or one disavows the fundamental goodness of human nature as well as the power of God’s mercy, in that Christ died for all.  Apart from these acknowledgments, one should steer clear of making absolute judgments concerning any one individual’s destination or on percentages of such destinations. “Officially” the Church does not deny the possibility of universal salvation, nor does it require belief in it.  Added to that, the Church does officially have a canon of saints, so we must believe there are people in heaven, but there is no official canon of the damned, so it is possible hell is empty. 

If the believer is concerned here, they have leeway. However, it is important for one to sculpt their relationship to these ideas in such a way that they keep proper beatitude.  At the very least, one should approach one’s own life and one’s neighbor with a purgatorial disposition.  One should strive to enter the narrow gate.  That is they should recognize their own faults and be aware that none of us will reach perfection in this life.  One should be stalwart in their effort at the discernment of and cooperation with the graces offered.  However, given the possibility of last-minute true conversion, we cannot judge the final destination of any person absolutely.  But given the nature of purgatory and the sin of presumption, neither can we “put off” what we know to be effective efforts toward justification.

 

In this section, we discussed the current process of canonization and how the canon offers a “safe list” of saints for veneration and to seek intercessions from.  We then discussed the drawbacks to the assumption that the official canon of saints is an exclusive list and developed the spiritual skill of a purgatorial disposition.  This disposition helps us remember that the saints were not perfect during their earthy life and helps us recognize the potential sanctity of any person. Lastly, we commented on the tension between Christ’s sacrificial death for all mankind and the “narrow gate” to salvation.   

         

 

Five Modal Expansions Concerning Effective Sanctity

In this section, we will seek to expand our understanding of who could be venerated as a saint and celebrated on the Feast of All Saints Day.  We will begin by meditating on the nonymous and mythic saints.  These saints are the saints that we have names but no real hagiography for, or the saints that we have elaborate archetypal hagiographies for, but no historical grounding.  These two varieties remind us of the mysterious nature of salvation as an individual or archetypal reality.  Considering them helps us move beyond the common stalwart saintly examples that any Catholic would be aware of.  Next, we will engage in a meditation on the Harrowing of Hell and from that derived the category proto-Christian Saints.  These are saints who lived before the incarnation. The Harrowing and the existence of these saints remind us of the expansive reach of Christ’s sanctifying death.  Christ’s sacrifice is not bound to the jurisdiction of the institutional church. With that knowledge, we will lastly discuss two possible varieties of post incarnation saints that lay outside the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, candidate saints and crypto-catechumen saints.  These are post-incarnational saints of other Christian traditions or who are not baptized by water but are baptized by desire.   

The Nonymous Saints and the Mythic Saints 

 

The purpose of this section is to offer varieties of saints to consider for canonization, but since that takes money, influence, and a successful investigation by the Holy See such an effort is unlikely to be undertaken.  Thus our primary goal is to offer the laity considerations for exercising their veneration on the Feast of All Saints or the Feast of All Souls.  We are going to ease into our expansion by starting with the most “acceptable” saints and working to the most unconsidered.  We are going to start with what we are calling the “nonymus saints”.  The nonymus saints are saints that are canonized, but there is little to no hagiography. Considering the nonymus saints may be helpful to widen our understanding of who the saints are.  This is not because the category of nonymus saint is controversial, but because their lives are mysterious.  This mystery is the same mystery that exists for most of the world population.  We don’t know most people, therefore the nonymus saints help us understand that we don’t know most of the saints.  

The wide array of characters presented in the martyrology show us the wide access of salvation, that Christ died for humanity, and humanity is invited to partake in his saving death.  Included in the canon are many saints that we simply don’t know much about.  These mysterious saints offer a window into the agnostic trust we must have in the mechanism of salvation.  It is not our role to judge the merits of salvation, and these saints of mysterious lives help us remember that we can trust the Just Judge when it comes down to it.  They also remind us that it is possible to access salvation having done few to no “mighty deeds” worth remembering.   

 One wide category of this type of saint is a number of long lists and one off mentions of Saint Paul.  Saint Paul greets many people in his letters who go on to be added to the canon of Saints.  Other than his greeting we know nothing of their lives.  The same could be said of the 72 that Jesus sent out.  There is a spackling of Saints on the calendar that are said to be of the 72 but their hagiography is often slim to none, other than they were disciples who were sent.  Then there are a host of martyrs whose entire hagiography consists of “martyred during the persecution of XYZ”.  Or there are those whose entire hagiography consists of “hermit in a cave near XYZ City”.  Along with these, there are collective groups of saints, usually who were martyred together, and of the group, we may have only a name or two (or even no names at all).  Examples would be “The Martyred Women of North Africa” or  “the Martyrs of Sigum”, where there is an indeterminate number of martyrs, but we only have eight names and no narrative hagiography. The saints described in this paragraph are strictly nonymus saints. The most we know of them is their name.  

Then there is a more rare, but solidly present set of saints whose existence is only really known by acts they accomplished after their death.  Examples would be Philemon and Rosalie.  It was not until long after these women died and their celestial powers manifested that they became known and canonized.  We have no idea how their terrestrial lives operated.  If their celestial intercessory powers had not manifested, if their role in heaven had simply been to glorify God, we would have no idea of their existence.  The existence of these saints inspires one to wonder about the presumption that speculation on the saved must relate to those we have a close personal connection to.  Rosalie did have a geographic connection to the people she saved from the plague, but they knew nothing of her previous to the discovery of her relics and subsequent visions.  It is similar to Philomena but without even the geographic association.  She is totally historically divorced from the community she intercedes for.  If these saints can be recognized and venerated by a community, then close personal relationships to the terrestrial life of the pre-canonized saint cannot be necessary.       

These saints teach us that there is a whole contingent of celestial persons who abide and share a life of love in the kingdom that we know little about.  They may even be caring for us without our knowledge.  The “expansive” nature of these saints is that their documented existence points us to a vast possibility of the undocumented saints, those who, outside of any terrestrial canon, exist, love, and care in the kingdom.  The only way we can access these people is either by direct experience (visions, miracles, dreams), or a pre-existent relationship (relative, community member, public notoriety).  It is not “as safe a bet” to seek a relationship with these people. But Christianity is never a safe bet.  A safe bet does not make for objective reality.  Saints are not “lessons”, they are people, and therefore their objective existence is more than a list and a story or miracle.  Considering these saints is a consideration of the vastness of the sanctified.  It opens us to the mercy of God beyond our direct knowledge.

Standing in almost opposition to the nonymus saints are the mythic saints.  Whereas the nonymus saints are historical without the story, mythic saints are the story without the history.  Their stories tend to deal with cosmic Christian concerns or concerns that generally face the Christian every day. The classic example would be Saint Christopher, who long ago was removed from the official calendar because there is no historical evidence for his existence.  But because of the mythic nature of his story, his devotion did not go gentle into that good night.  This retelling of the Atlas story in Christian trappings has a general appeal.  Anyone who takes the Christian life seriously feels, at first, that they can persist by fortitude alone.  When the burden of a true Christian life manifests, it quickly becomes unbearable and we all hit points in our journey where we ask, “why are you so heavy?”  It is then that Christ teaches us that it is not our solitary journey, we are all connected and we all bear each other's burdens together, Christ alone bearing them all simultaneously.  

Another excellent example is Lazarus the Leper, whose feast day is June 21.  Lazarus the Leper is distinct from Lazarus of Bethany, whose feast is July 29.  Lazarus of Bethany was a historical person.  He was the brother of Martha and Mary, and Jesus raised him from the dead.  Lazarus the Leper is a character in the Parable of The Rich man and Lazarus from Luke chapter 16.  This character is listed in the canon as a saint.  Again his story is true, to an extent, as “a historical reality” much like Saint Christopher.  His narrative embodies the promises of the beatitudes in Luke’s Sermon on the plain.  No doubt there were and always will be poor who are ignored by the wealthy, but are beloved by God.  These poor are nameless, while “the World” celebrates the names of the rich and famous.  In the parable, the rich man has no name, while the poor leper’s name (recorded in the book of life) is recorded by the parable.  This saint gives a name to the nameless who face his situation, a name we can call on to reach out to them in the heavenly places for aid.         

In the case of the mythic saints, it is mythic history over recorded or etiological history.  But mythic history speaks to deep truths of humanity.  We all struggle with these truths and face these challenges.  Doubtless, many people have struggled and accepted the salvation of Christ, but are unknown to us “historically”.  It is by the names of these canonized mythic saints that we can reach those who truly lived the struggles embodied in the myth, but whose names we do not know.  By recognizing mythic saints, the Church is giving a “safe bet” not for a person, but for a process of sanctification.  The process or concern is seen as a possible avenue for sanctification (though not a necessary or sure one).  The mythic saints is expansive because the role of the mythic saints is to include and allow access to all the hidden saints who followed that same path or shared that concern.                

The Harrowing of Hell and the Proto-Christian Saints

After an expansion into mystery, we can now make an expansion in time.  When one says “Saint” one usually assumes the object is a person who lived during or after the incarnation of the Son as the person Jesus Christ in the first century.  We usually assume that this person, in their terrestrial life, knew the name at which “every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” But if knees are bending under the earth at the name of Christ, then knees bend that did not know Jesus in their own life because they were alive before the incarnation.  This leads to a very under commented on, but very impactful dogma noted in both the Apostle’s and the Athanasian Creed, The Harrowing of Hell.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the dogma in summary, “By the expression "He descended into hell", the Apostles' Creed confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil "who has the power of death" (Heb 2:14). In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven's gates for the just who had gone before him.”  What this means is that Christ’s saving grace is neither geo-specific nor temporally bound.  1 Peter 3 reminds us that Christ, “went to preach to the spirits in prison.” after his death.  It is unclear exactly who these spirits are, but it is clear that they were beings who pre existed the incarnation and were now being offered opportunities due to the effectiveness of Christ’s sacrificial death. It is the teaching of the Church that all people who lived previously to the incarnation in time have access to his saving death and can accept his grace of salvation.

How can this be if Extra ecclesiam nulla salus? The dogma of the Harrowing of Hell is a strong example of both the validity of the mystical body model of the Church and the effectiveness of Baptism by desire.  As we noted in the treatise Ecclesiological Orientation, “This view [the mystical body model] is not a method of ruling and teaching, but an ontologically defined community of relational persons.”  It sees the Church as everyone who shares a spiritual relationship with God and therefore is an inclusive model.  Baptism by desire functions in concert with the mystical body model of the Church helps us understand how the Harrowing of Hell is possible.  If one only believed that the Church was the “institutional church”, that is, the hierarchy, or those who are juridically bound to the Church, then the harrowing of hell is impossible.  Those who lived before the incarnation were not baptized by water, nor were they juridically bound to the institutional church during their life on earth.  But these proto-Christian saints did seek God and/or the truth in their life and therefore when Christ descended to the dead and brought the gospel to them, his conquering of death was extended to them at that point, and they accepted it. 

The proto-Christian saints accepted Christ after their death, at the soonest possible opportunity.  This shows their spiritual relationship with the Church as having existed the whole time.  The proto-Christian saints were invited into the Church not by some foreign principality or power, but by Christ himself.  If they had aligned themself with some such power in life, it was because in life that was the closest they could come to understand the truth.  The incarnation was in no way available to them.  The Harrowing of Hell is an excellent meditation for cultivating a purgatorial disposition.  The pre-incarnational saints dwelled in Sheol, the abode of the dead.  We call it “hell” because those in that place of death have no access to the beatific vision.  But upon the death of the savior and his subsequent conquering of death, that place is transformed during his sojourn into a contingent purgatory.  At that moment they have the option of leaving.     

The dogma of Harrowing of Hell greatly expands our access to saints far beyond our standard comfort zone.  As we noted before, most of the saints we commonly celebrate are clerics or consecrated from western Europe.  Reading the daily feasts will help one look past these categories because there are many other varieties that are canonized, but meditating on the nonymous and mythic saints was meant to help us realize that we have no understanding of what the historically public requirements of a saint are.  Given that we would have at least presumed that they would be “members of the Church” in the traditional sense. But now we see that there are saints who stretch back in time beyond the institutional church’s reach.  But are they canonized? Does the Church recognize them? Or are we simply to trust they exist and move on?

Of the two varieties of proto-Christian saints, we will start with the more acceptable.  Starting with Adam and Eve, (whose feast is on December 24), there are many Old Testament figures who are officially canonized.  The dogma of the Harrowing of Hell and the subsequent canonization of these figures reminds us that the developmental process of salvation history through the nation of Israel was not in vain for those engendered there.  All of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, Moses, David, the Prophets each have feast days on the calendar.  From this, we can assume that there are more among the people of Israel who were attuned to God and were able to recognize the gospel.  The Canon even includes Saint Gamaliel, the Pharisee who instructed Paul.  There is no record in scripture of his conversion, but there is a Christian tradition that he did ultimately convert. Regardless, his passive approach toward Christianity in Acts 5 demonstrates his bias toward the truth, that even had he never joined the institutional church, he was one who desired the truth to prevail and did not desire to stop it.  Now he is venerated as a saint.  Doubtless, there are children of Israel who are just as open to the truth.  In Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus died, “tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” 

The second variety of proto-Christian saints are those who did not exist in the ordinary framework of salvation history, but still had a desire for truth and operated and ordered their life according to that desire.  For example, when Jonah preached to the Ninevites, the entire city of Nineveh repented and reformed so dramatically, that Jonah was bitter about God’s mercy.   This same bitterness is a key element of the lessons of many parables of The Savior.  Parables such as the Laborers in the Vineyard or the brother in the Prodigal Son often remind us that sinners and tax collectors are entering the kingdom of God before those perceived as righteous due to their lineage or litigiousness.  God is not so cruel a tyrant as to leave humanity bereft of access to salvation in the midst of the very working out of that salvation.

The Harrowing of Hell was not simply a harrowing of the children of Israel in Hell.  Jesus conquered death in totality, and thereby his offer of life extends in totality.  The great mystery of the nonymous saints and the mythic saints reminds us that humanity is vast and since we are literally built to seek God, it would be odd if through the entire span of human history before the incarnation no one outside of Israel was oriented toward seeking truth.  The Old Testament is filled with Gentiles who seem to be in relationship with God or at least open to the truth (sometimes in ways better than their Jewish counterparts in the narrative).  Examples would be Rahab, Uriah the Hittite, The Prophet Balaam (who though he is often excoriated, seemed to have direct access to God and did the will of God when asked), Ruth (Whose Feast day is November 1), or The Priest-King Melchizedek (whose Feast day is August 26).  

Again, these are biblical figures some of whom are canonized and appear on the calendar.  But what about extra biblical figures? Much like the Israelites, whose numbers are beyond counting, doubtless, there are vast amounts of Gentiles who strive to live lives seeking truth that would accept it if it was offered.  One can simply look at the Christian borrowing of the Greek philosophers and see that, especially concerning Plato and Aristotle, the Christian community sees these men as having had an orientation toward Truths of reality regardless of the fact that they pre-dated the incarnation.  Given the dogma of the Harrowing of Hell, it is surprising that they have not been canonized due to the evidence.  

The Trojan Ripheus in Dante’s Paradiso is an example of both the desire for recognition of this type of proto-Christian saint and a testament to the fact that it is not some newfangled idea.  Ripheus is a cameo character in the Aeneid, but Dante fills out his character in the Paradisio as a person who is a lover of Justice.  In Canto XX Dante the pilgrim sees Ripheus and “to my lips "What things are these?"  involuntary rush'd,”  It is hard for Christians to grasp that those who lived before Christ could abide in heaven.  But the angelic voice answers Dante, 

Fervent love 

And lively hope with violence assail

The kingdom of the heavens, and overcome

The will of the Most high; not in such sort

As man prevails o'er man; but conquers it,

Because 't is willing to be conquer'd, still,

Though conquer'd, by its mercy conquering.   

Ripheus is not a canonized saint, but Dante uses him as an example of those that came before Christ who could theoretically accept the offer during the Harrowing of Hell.  

There is one canonized saint that typifies the gentile proto-Christian Saint. In the canon he is called Saint Josaphat, (a derivation of the Buddhist term Bodhisattva). The Feast day of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, is November 27. The canonization of Buddha lies somewhere between mythic saints and proto-Christian saints. The figure is a figure of the quest for truth, and in that the story is mythic.  The story of Saint Josaphat is the story of a Christian, and in that, it does not align with the life of the Buddha, who lived five centuries before the incarnation.  But there is no doubt the story is the story of the historical Buddha, and in that it is based on a historical person and his historical quest for finding out the nature of reality and the cosmos.  The historical accuracy of this is probably greater in percentage than any story we have of Abraham the Patriarch.  “But Buddha wasn’t a Christian! Isn’t that a major oversight?” Yes, and no; Yes if one thinks of Christianity under the juridical institutional model.  But if Buddha had the desire for ultimate truth, which any record of his life attests that he does, and he valued that truth more than any tenet he currently held, he was a recipient of Baptism by desire.  If he mythically speaks of “Jesus” in legends, he is speaking of the Logos whom he truly seeks.  “But Buddha’s cosmology is abhorrent and totally off base for Christianity!”  That is irrelevant and disregards the reality of the Dogma of the Harrowing of Hell.  Such a statement speaks to the lack of a purgatorial disposition.  Buddha had no way of accessing Christ during his life.  He worked with the tools he had to strive for perfection.  He spent time in purgation, that is hell, until its harrowing, and then he accepted the offer of Christ.  I say this objectively and concretely because Saint Josphat is a canonized saint, Buddha is worthy of veneration according to our canon and calendar.  His feast day is the first possible day that advent could mathematically fall, which speaks volumes about his role in the Church.  As we noted in our Daily Reflections for Advent,

This particular first Sunday of Advent marks the longest possible journey to Christ  On the Feast of Saints Josaphat and Barlaam, (a Christianized retelling of the story of Siddhartha Buddha) we remember how long the Gentiles pursued the light of Christ absent the fulfillment of Abraham. … Of all those Christ delivered when he harrowed from hell as his body lay in the tomb, Sidhartha seemed least likely due to his cosmological conclusions.  But his long journey to Enlightenment was sincere enough to let him see the light of Christ when it came.  This saint is truly our symbol of Hope in Christ beyond our expectations.        

Knowing what we now do of Sidhartha Gautama, can one deny that a whole host of famed seekers who predated the incarnation also accepted the offer of salvation?  Of such people the angelic voice of Canto XX in The Paradisio states, “They quitted not their bodies, as thou deem'st, Gentiles but Christians, in firm rooted faith” 

A long list of pre-common era philosophers and religious leaders as saints may appear scandalous, but only of is bereft of a purgatorial disposition.  No one enters the judgment worthy of entrance to the kingdom.  No one is perfectly moral in this life.  No one possesses perfect knowledge.  These perfections are not a requirement for salvation.  But sincerely striving for them is and orienting one’s life toward successful resolution of that struggle is.  One with a purgatorial disposition understands this and understands that Buddha is a natural exemplar of such a struggle.  The only question is, was Sidhartha Gautama so set in his cosmology and his eightfold path that he could not accept Christ when Christ was recognizably presented to him?  The Church has deemed that the answer is, “no he was not”.  The Church proclaims that during the Harrowing of Hell, Sidhartha Gautama completed his quest for enlightenment through the Light of the World and was one of the ones who accepted this light into his being.

Combine these two varieties of proto-Christian saints, the Hebrew and the Pagan, with the mystery of the nonymous saints and the struggle of the mythic saints, and one can begin to see the possibility of a vast nameless number of saints in the communion who predate the incarnation.  This realization is part of the true glory of All Saints day.  The feast is a feast of the extra-temporal nature of Christ’s victory over death.  It is also the day that the laity has speculative control over veneration.  So, for a Chinese Catholic who greatly respects Lao Tzu as an inspired ancestor, and who honestly believes that his disposition was toward truth, the feast of All Saints is a day they can safely honor him without scandal.  In a better world, they could also use the dogma of the Harrowing of Hell and the baptism of desire to seek his official canonization without scandal.

The Candidate Saints and the Crypto-Catechumen Saints

Having moved from the mystery of nonymous saints and mythic saints back in time to the pre-incarnational proto-Christian saints we can now move forward from the incarnation and see how far we can push the borders of “the Church” by regarding people who may be part of the mystical body, but not part of the juridical church.  Thus far, we have clearly laid the groundwork for acceptance of such saints.  But in advance of our discussion, it may help to briefly discuss John 10.  In this chapter, Jesus is again discussing a “Narrow Gate”, and is again concerned with thievery.  

This is another passage where Jesus identifies himself as “the gate”.  “So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came [before me] are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.”  This introduction hints directly at the existence of the proto-Christian saints.  If there are sheep who did not listen to the thieves who “came before”, then they will now listen to Christ at the Harrowing. Then Jesus goes on to say, quite enigmatically, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.”  This remark can easily be made sense of, if one considered John’s community as an amalgamation of Jews and Samaritans.  The mix seems to lead to some strife that must be reconciled. Add to that the temporal context of the end of the first century, as the gentile population of Christians, is overtaking the Jewish population. These divisions must be brought to unity, yet at the same time, there are distinct cultures to be maintained. Hence one gets a dual assertion, “other sheep” and “one flock”. The one flock is the mystical body model that binds all by their relationship to Christ.  The other sheep maintains a juridical model, Israel or a local Christian community as opposed to “another” community.

We can therefore draw on this passage, and legitimately apply it to “other sheep” who are identified by baptism by desire as opposed to the objective and institutional baptism by water.  Even though these are two different modes of baptism, they are one baptism.  Baptism by water will do one no good if they never cooperate with their desire for God.  Conversely, baptism by desire will do one no good if one is not sincerely following it toward the truth, the natural end of which is baptism by water.  

Since water is the natural end of desire, we will explore baptism by desire by means of the concepts of the “candidate” and the catechumen.  Coupling an understanding of these categories with a purgatorial disposition will help us gauge the imperfect nature of the terrestrial lives of the saints we are going to discuss. In this last part, we are seeking the ability to include among the saints, members of the Church who lived post incarnation but were not attached to the institutional jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff.  

 In RCIA there are two types of members seeking entrance into the Roman Church.  There are the catechumens, who have never been baptized and are starting “from scratch” so to speak.  The second variety or person in the RCIA is the candidate.  This is a person who was baptized in another Christian tradition but now seeks entrance into the Catholic Church.  The reason for the distinction is that if the other tradition uses the proper trinitarian formula, and almost all other traditions do, the Catholic Church recognizes the validity of those baptisms.  They cannot be “re-baptized”, so the candidate is already a member of the Body of Christ according to baptism by water.  They only need to “enter full communion” with the Church, that is, they need to finish the sacraments of initiation.  But the reality is, having been validly baptized by water, they are in fact objectively verified Christians.

The most benign category of candidate saints would be the schismatic.  One may object that a schismatic is in no way part of the Church, and therefore this would certainly be a time for Extra ecclesiam nulla salus to apply.  The only way that it seems a schismatic could enter the Church would be if they very obviously reformed.  An example of this is Blessed Louis Allemand.  Allemand was Bishop of Maguelonne in the 15th century.  He was primarily responsible for the election of Antipope Felix V.  Allemand consecrated Felix as bishop, then crowned him as pope, and served as a papal diplomat. This led to Pope Eugenius IV excommunicating them both.  Allemand did ultimately see the error of his ways and was primarily responsible for ending the schism by convincing Felix to abdicate.  Blessed Louis Allemand is not the most popularly venerated saint, probably because he was a schismatic, but he did reform before he died and was reconciled to the Roman Pontiff.  Because of that even the most hardline proponent of Extra ecclesiam nulla salus can accept him.  But had a schismatic had not reformed, wouldn’t that disqualify them from salvation?   

Again, that assumes a juridical model, not a model based on relationship with Christ and his mystical body.  Though the jurisdictions are an indicator of the mystical body, the grace of the baptism (once we recognize all varieties) transcends earthly jurisdictions.  So for example the hagiography of Blessed Peter of Luxembourg provides an extremely curious example for us. Peter was Created cardinal of San Georgio, Velabro in 1386 at age sixteen by decree of antipope Clement VII. He never “repented” or submitted to the true bishop of Rome.  But the hagiography makes this excuse for his cause, 

A noted reformer of his diocese, known for his personal austerity and penance, his prayer life, and genuine piety. He was driven from Metz and joined Clement in Avignon where he died, still in his teens. Thrown into the politics of the state and of the Church during a period of schism; Peter was wholly unequipped for it, being a child, and a simple one at that. He chose the wrong side in the dispute over the papacy, but was immediately recognized for his personal holiness.

Here is a beati who was a schismatic throughout his entire life.  But his sanctity was what is noted, not the jurisdiction he is under.   

There are also a few saints of Eastern rites not in union with Rome that are recognized on the Roman Calendar.  Examples would be Saint Stephen of Perm, who was Russian Orthodox, and Saint Gregory of Narek, who was of the Armenian rite, and both communities consider him a Doctor of the Church.  Much like the pagan proto-Christian saints, one can easily see the difficulty of putting members of the Eastern Christian rites through the Roman canonical process.  If the cause was successfully executed, it may seem to validate schism.  But that is not the point.  The point is to notice the operation of Grace according and salvation through Christ, not salvation through rubric or jurisdiction.  Christ’s baptism (by water) is still effective, even in the schismatic churches with parallel hierarchical structures.  This is the point the hagiography of Blessed Peter of Luxembourg tries to get across.

It would be even harder to conceive that a protestant Christian could be officially canonized.  But their baptisms by water are legitimate.  Again, the confusion would be that having Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a canonized saint would somehow endorse the Baptist variety of protestant Christianity.  But as we noted above, no saint is perfect on earth.  It would not necessarily endorse his Baptist alignment anymore than it would endorse any adultery if King did commit adultery. There have been many adulterous people who still managed the scrutiny of the canonization process.  The theological possibility of Protestants being in heaven is a no brainer.  The soteriological gymnastics are not nearly as difficult as one has to make for Sidhartha Gautama, and he is a canonized saint.  The upside of calling them candidate saints is to help the Catholic reading the hagiography know that in their life, though they were baptized, they weren’t in full communion with the catholic church.  That allows for caution regarding the saint's earthly teaching.  But the reality of having such saints on the canon would have great lessons for how grace operates through baptism despite our weaknesses and flaws.  Canonized candidate saints or the veneration of such saints on All Saints Day would help us form a purgatorial disposition, especially toward protestants.  All protestants are simply candidate Catholics.  To see them as such would probably help us better relate to them rather than see them as “enemies”.    

The last variety of saint we are seeking to define would be the crypto-catechumen saints.  In the early church, since the process of joining the Church took some time, sometimes catechumens died natural death before they completed the process. The catechumens were considered “Christian” after a fashion.  The early church realized that there had to be some kind of grace operating for them to be willing to cooperate with the process of seeking union with the Church such that they could be considered.  A bureaucratic roadblock should not stop them from being considered members of the body in the ultimate sense since it is their desire to do so.  This phenomenon is what sparks the concept of “baptism by desire”.  We can put ourselves at ease with this category by remembering that there are already canonized saints who never recognized Jesus Christ while they lived on this earth, those would be the proto-Christian Saints.  “But they couldn't recognize Christ, they lived before the incarnation!” True, but at this point, we can recall the mode and process of baptism by desire. The Catechism states, 

“Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.” Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.”  

 

It seems reasonable to respond, “who can be ‘ignorant of the Gospel and the Church’ in this day and age? Christianity has spread all over the world.  The Church and the Bible are everywhere accessible.”

But the catechism doesn’t say the Bible, it says the gospel, which is the message of Christ, which is not the four writings of the bible, but the message as it needs to be conveyed in order to be accepted.  Couple that with a warped view of what the Church is that is often propagandized, and you may have quite a few people who are ignorant in this sense. This was commented in the treatise Ordinary and Extraordinary Religions,  

For something to be known, it must be true, for it is not proper to say one “knows” things that are not true.  We will assume the truth of the necessity of baptism for salvation.  Then, two epistemological qualifiers kick in, 1) that the person be cognitively aware of the possibility of the truth, and 2) that the person believe the content of that awareness.  If you don’t believe something you do not know it.  Regarding the epistemological categories and the baptism of desire, people often focus on the first, the awareness of the possibility.  It is often people's belief that if someone were at all exposed to any information about Christianity then baptism by desire is off the table for them.  But if I am in a religion other than Christianity and someone tells me that Jesus died for my sins and baptism is the way to access the grace afforded, the simple proclamation in my presence only gives me the cognitive awareness of its possibility.  It does not mean I believe it, and if I don’t believe it I don’t know it.  In fact imagine a situation where Christianity is mostly reviled by the dominant cultural forces, and a missionary tells someone about the gospel.  The force of cultural weight which biases the listener against Christianity would probably not put them in a place to believe such a statement without a lot more personally specialized support from the missionary. 

The epistemological concerns are particularly important when considering the baptism by desire and how expansive it can be.  When speaking of a person invested with this type of baptism the catechism says that  “it may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.” (CCC 1260)   Well who wouldn’t desire it if they know under both epistemological requirements of knowledge.  Poor evangelization that does not, or possibly cannot, convince should not be the reason for a person’s damnation.  “They should have known” is not a good enough excuse for someone truly seeking God to end up in hell, simply because some missionary did a half job at best trying to convince them.  What this means is that any person who is truly seeking God to the best of their ability, investing their will and desire, receive the grace of   this baptism.  To object that they don’t believe in Jesus is simply to reaffirm that they are not receiving baptism in the sacramental form, but as baptism by desire.  What they are seeking is God, and Jesus is God, so they are seeking Jesus, they just aren’t quite as far along as some in their knowledge of the objective phenomenon, but their intention may be more pure than some who are aware and believe the objective phenomenon.
        

This view places a lot of responsibility on the catechist, missionary, and evangelizer, but that is the job.

We can see this entire process play out in the hagiography of Saint Ahmet the Calligrapher.  Catholic Saints Info relates his story,

Raised as a Muslim in 17th-century Constantinople. Calligrapher and copyist in the royal chancery. He lived as an unmarried layman, but had a concubine, a Christian slave woman from Russia. Little by little, she brought him to a desire for the faith, and he began his catechumenate. However, before he could be baptized he was betrayed by another calligrapher who spotted him with Christian. Ahmed was arrested, imprisoned without food for a week, and then murdered for his desire to convert. Martyr.

  This hagiography relays a conservatively acceptable narrative of “baptism by desire”. In the more liberal interpretation, baptism by desire is extended beyond those who are bureaucratically involved in the initiation of the Church.  The grace operable there is comparable to the grace operable to the proto-Christian Saints.  But in this case, the approach of Christ is not the Harrowing of Hell, it is the personal judgment.  There they are judged on the sincerity of their conscience, meaning did they honestly and constantly seek the truth of God by the best sources as they conceived them.  In the judgment, it is assumed that they would be left little room to doubt that the best source is in the judge’s chair. How does the individual respond? Do they embrace Christ, seeking mercy and extending love?  Or do they reject Christ?  The judgment is not a “gotcha” moment, where, even though you thought you were right it turns out you were wrong and you are damned because of your ignorance. Rather, it is an assessment of how well you have been seeking to relate to God with every part of your being.  It is assumed that any human would be wrong on quite a bit about how they understood and lived their lives. This assumption is validated by the existence of purgatory.  The purgatorial disposition opens up what could possibly be a substantial portion of people throughout the past two millennia who could conceivably be venerated on All Saints Day.  So for the candidate saint, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was our example.  For the crypto-catechumen saint, the classic modern example would be Gandi, a person who was never baptized by water, but his life demonstrates a quest for truth and justice.  

Again, one may object, “Gandi knew Christianity, he was educated in England.” but he also famously quipped, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”  This quote demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of the Church of Christ and certain aspects of the gospel.  No one expected the Apostles or the disciples to be perfect.  Gandhi obviously sees Christ as simply a teacher to be imitated, which lacks a deep understanding of redemption, salvation, and the nature of the pilgrim church.  This documented misunderstanding puts him in the camp of “possible” as a crypto-catechumen saint.  

Again, one may say, “If we venerate Gandhi, even if only on all saints day, it gives the impression that Hinduism is correct.”  But that objection demonstrates a lack of purgatorial disposition.  Though the terrestrial life of the saints demonstrates some virtue, they are never perfect.  Gandhi definitely demonstrates both virtue and the need for learning and growth.  If he were a crypto-catechumen, he would need to spend time in purgatory, but that is not a unique thing, most all of the saved do.  

The unwitting seeker of Christ is not a new concept.  Karl Rahner famously labeled them anonymous Christians.  This treatise seeks to better emphasize the need for development by labeling the crypto-catechumens.  The term “catechumen” definitely should bring to mind someone who has much progress to make.  Still, the theological conservative may balk “Karl Rahner! These new fangled ideas will not do!”  But the idea is not “new fangled”.  Just as Dante placed a proto-Christian saint in his Paradiso, believe it or not, he also placed there a crypto-catechumen saint, born after the incarnation, but never baptized by water.  His choice is shocking, because he is not a pagan philosopher, like the many that Dante draws on for his cosmology, such as Plato or Aristotle.  In fact, the only Greek philosophers we meet in the inferno, Anaxagoras, Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and "Zeno", are in the first circle of Hell. Rather the saved and justified post-incarnation pagan, was well acquainted with Christianity because he was a prosecutor of the Church.  Dante curiously places the Emperor Trajan in heaven, specifically in the Sphere of Jupiter, the 9th circle of paradise.  The Spirit speaking of Trajan notes the purgatorial disposition in his description, “now doth he know How dear he costeth not to follow Christ, both from experience of this pleasant life, and of its opposite.” 

Indeed, though he was never canonized, by the time of Dante’s composition it was a common belief that Trajan was somehow saved.  It recounts the death of Trajan in the Life of Gregory the Pope and goes on to say, “ Saint Gregory went by the market of Rome which is called the market of Trajan, and then he remembered of the justice and other good deeds of Trajan, and how he had been piteous and debonair and was much sorrowful that he had been a pagan, and he turned to the Church of Saint Peter wailing for the horror of the miscreants of Trajan. Then answered a voice from God saying: I have now heard thy prayer, and have spared Trajan from the pain perpetual.”  The thought of Trajan, an emperor who persecuted the Church as a saint may seem odd to the modern Catholic.  This is especially true because he never repented and embraced Christianity while he lived in this earthly realm.  But the ancient Christians distinguished between his persecution of the faithful and the justice he tried to implement as an emperor.  The quote for the Life of Gregory the Pope shows that he did suffer for his incorrect dispositions and actions.  This is a purgatorial disposition tracing back to the ancient church. But still, he was never canonized.  All Saints Day would be a day of celebration of the salvation of Trajan, who the ancients felt certain was saved by his love of justice, despite his ignorance and much great evil that he did.

So what of Gandhi? Could an Indian Catholic venerate him on All Saints Day?  They would be no less faithful Catholic in doing this than they would be venerating their departed grandmother.  They have a deep connection to him as a worker of justice in their community.  Maybe that seems scandalous.  At the very least, the evidence suggests we can relate to Gandhi as a subject of prayers on All Souls' Day.  These two celebrations work in harmony to ignite the mystery of salvation in our spiritual lives.  They work harmoniously to expand our understanding of God’s grace and human effort (as a process) to find Truth.  This is the day for the laity to ponder these mysteries outside of the safe space of the defined canon.  The liturgical life of the Church will recognize this mystery namelessly, but the laity can act to venerate and recognize para-liturgically through dynamic popular piety using their best and most sincere judgment.   

Conclusion

In the first section of this treatise, we discussed the current process of canonization and how the canon offers a “safe list” of saints for veneration and to seek intercessions from.  We then discussed the drawbacks to the assumption that the official canon of saints is an exclusive list and developed the spiritual skill of a purgatorial disposition.  This disposition helps us remember that the saints were not perfect during their earthy life and helps us recognize the potential sanctity of any person. Lastly, we commented on the tension between Christ’s sacrificial death for all mankind and the “narrow gate” to salvation.

In the second section, we sought to expand our understanding of who could be venerated as a saint and celebrated on the Feast of All Saints Day.  We began by meditating on the nonymous and mythic saints.  These saints are the saints that we have names but no real hagiography for or the saints that we have elaborate archetypal hagiographies for, but no historical grounding.  These two varieties remind us of the mysterious nature of salvation as an individual and archetypal reality.  Considering them helps us move beyond the common stalwart saintly examples that any Catholic would be aware of.  Next, we engaged in a meditation on the Harrowing of Hell and from that derived the category proto-Christian Saints.  These are saints who lived before the incarnation. The Harrowing and the existence of these saints remind us of the expansive reach of Christ’s sanctifying death.  Christ’s sacrifice is not bound to the jurisdiction of the institutional church. With that knowledge, we lastly discussed two possible varieties of post incarnation saints that lay outside the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, candidate saints and crypto-catechumen saints.  These are post-incarnational saints of other Christian traditions or who are not baptized by water but are baptized by desire.   

Often in catholic spheres of social media, someone will ask the general populace, “who is your favorite saint?” the answers come usually back with the standard responses of the most popular saints.  When someone asks, “who is your most favorite obscure saint?” Even still, what I consider fairly popular saints tend to be noted.  I recall a retreat where the presenter made a big deal about how he was going to talk about all the saints no one ever talks about.  He then went on to talk mostly about Augustine, with one nod to Josaphine Bakita, whose intercession our bishop had just publicly sought to end the sex trafficking issues in our city.  The presenter’s efforts were appreciated, but hardly innovative or uncommon.

My dream is that we can have a time when someone on social media asks, “who are you venerating for all saints day?” and A) that would not be a weird question, B) at least some of the names that came back were uncontroversially uncanonized.  We need to take the privilege bestowed this day in hand and honor those we understand to be holy by all metrics available.  Ift the laity can do this perhaps then the institutional church can begin to look beyond paperwork and jurisdictions to a wider view of venerable sanctity.