Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses…

One of my Wednesday morning tasks is setting up the choir room for the afternoon’s Youth Choir rehearsal. It is my custom as I put each chair into place to pray for the young person who will sit there. Mostly, I “hold them to the light” as the Friends say.

On this day, I had an impression so strong and vivid that it might be a vision: two of these young people as Saints. Not just any saint: the big-time people, the sort who have their name on the calendar.

Most likely, it is no more than an overactive imagination on All Saints’ Day, after reading the Epistle for Matins (Hebrews 11:32—12:3), about people being stoned and sawn asunder, destitute, afflicted, tormented. Most of the paths that lead to that kind of sanctity are thoroughly unpleasant (as compared to what most people would consider a "good life"), not infrequently including a gruesome and horrible death. I do not wish this upon my young choristers, no more than Saint Mary wished a crucifixion for her Son (and that was her gruesome and horrible death, the sword piercing through her heart as she stood by him on that day when the sun refused to shine).

But I do wish for all of them to be saints, whatever that involves for them. “And I want to be one, too,” as the song says. On this blessed and high feast, my “vision” (or whatever it was) is a good reminder that it is possible. These two children, or some other child in the choir, or one of the adults I work with, may in the end be so glorious as to put the sun and moon to shame with their brightness. They might walk as equals with Francis and Clare, or Martin Luther, or Julian of Norwich, or Bonhoeffer, or J. S. Bach.

I used to think of the “cloud of witnesses” as the saints in glory, looking down upon us, praying for us, cheering us on as we struggle forward. And that is reason enough to “run with patience the race that is set before us.” That is true enough, but increasingly, I am aware that the witnesses are also these children in the choir, their parents, my wife, my friends, the people who hear me play or sing in my rehearsals, indeed all those with whom I come in contact. They, likewise, are reason enough to “run with patience.”

O God, the King of saints, we praise and magnify thy holy Name for all thy servants who have finished their course in thy faith and fear; for the blessed Virgin Mary; for the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs; and for all other thy righteous servants, known to us and unknown; and we beseech thee that, encouraged by their examples, aided by their prayers, and strengthened by their fellowship, we also may be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (BCP p. 489)