Kathy Coffey

Perhaps the challenge of the Christmas season is whether we can hear familiar stories and songs with wonder, not the yawn of “déjà vu.”  Can we allow the stories we’ve heard a thousand times—of a journey to Bethlehem, a stable, angels, shepherds and magi, to resonate at a deeper level this year? Can we attend with care to whatever God wants to birth in us during this season? As Eugene Ionesco warns, “over-explanation separates us from astonishment.” Perhaps the rest of the year can be cut-and-dried, but this is the season for mystery to flourish.

It helps to read Caryll Houselander’s The Reed of God, which points out how ordinary the Christmas story is. God doesn’t ask Mary to enter a cloister or become a heroic missionary to cannibals. Her life carries on much as it might’ve before Gabriel’s visit. In fact, “God did mean it to be the ordinary thing” so Christ can be born “in every human being’s life and not, as a rule through extraordinary things.”

The quiet simplicity contrasts with the way of the zealot: loud, attention-seeking and forcing everyone into the same mold. The Christmas message is that we give hearts and hands to God, each unique life bearing Christ into the world. Whether we’re paying bills, mopping floors, buying groceries or washing cars, we are new faces of God. As Ilia Delio writes in The Hours of the Universe, “Each of us is a little word of the Word of God, a mini-incarnation of divine love.”

The juxtaposition of Christmas joy with the slaughter of the innocents three days later might seem a downer. Or, it’s the deeper meaning of the feast. Finally, an answer to our pain: One who shares it, is born into exile and the power of stupid thugs which may be delayed at his birth, but eventually slaughters him too, innocent victim of brutal violence like the children of Gaza and Ukraine. Then and now, Christ weeps over needless death, knowing it first-hand.  

“Life will prevail,” Houselander wrote during the London blitz, as the air raid sirens screamed and the bombs fell. She described a life and peace much stronger, more enduring and real, than the world’s. And for that, we have the promise of Christ, whose love song never missed a beat.

“God will make a house for you” comes the Advent promise of 2 Samuel 7. I try to rein in my fantasies about architecture and clean, lighted spaces. Instead I remember Jesus’ promise in John 15: 1-8, “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you.”

It’s such a natural metaphor, easy to imagine. Home is where we cook, eat, relax, eagerly return when it’s cold or rainy, cry, read, invite friends and family, sleep and laugh: the shelter of our truest self. In The Reed of God, a book I’ve read many Advents since high school, Caryll Houselander says, “It’s as if the human race were a little dark house, without light or air, locked and latched.” When Mary says “Yes” to Gabriel, she opens the door to a clean wind and light, “and in that little house a child was born.”

The shared belief of Christians is that Jesus has become one with humans, indeed has pitched his tent within us. None of us deserves this, so we celebrate God’s lavish abandon, the scandalous gratuity of God’s gift.

If this seems a tall order, if we’re too tired or depressed to rejoice, we can take heart from the ambiguity of the feast. Mary’s reaction to the angel is to be “much perplexed.” Indeed, the whole experience is for her a two-edged sword: joy tempered by natural, human fear.

Notice the angel Gabriel’s first word to Mary: “Rejoice.” Let’s remember it this week, which can be one of the most hectic in the year. The angel says, “rejoice.” Not “spend. Clean. Cook. Decorate. Shop. Bake. Wrap. Shop again. Create the perfect holiday ambiance. Work to exhaustion. Make everyone in the family sublimely happy.”

Oh Mary, if you could see us now. Trying to evade the relentless cheer of holiday songs repeated so often we could scream, figuring out how we’ll “get it all done,” buzzing with details. You created a balance between anticipation and confusion. You focused on the important thing: making a home in yourself where the small and vulnerable could shelter.  Bring us home to ourselves, to our creative calling.

Need a gift to help an older person appreciate all they mean to us? Try A Generous Lap: A Spirituality of Grandparenting. Orbis Books, 800-258-5838, or their website: https://orbisbooks.com/

This season seems permeated with impossibilities like the dead stump of Jesse budding. Even if we could wrap our minds around the idea of God becoming human, it’s an even longer leap to see ourselves as God’s children, heirs to the divine kingdom. Irish poet John O’Donohue writes of “being betrothed to the unknown.” Christmas means we are also married to the impossible, getting comfortable with the preposterous. It all began with Mary’s vote of confidence: “For nothing is impossible with God.” During liturgies when we hear Mary’s “Magnificat,” we might remember Elizabeth’s words that precede it: “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord will be fulfilled” (Luke 1:45).

It’s a good time to ask ourselves, do we let bitterness and cynicism poison our hearts? Ironically, WE are conscious of our own limitations. GOD keeps reminding us of our high calling, royal lineage and a mission so impeccably suited to our talents and abilities, no one else in the world can do it. Again, Mary is the perfect model. She might not understand half the titles given her son in the “Alleluia Chorus” of the “Messiah.” Mighty God? Prince of Peace? Such language is better suited to a royal citadel than a poor village named Nazareth.  While her questions are natural, she never wimps out with “I don’t deserve this honor.” Instead, she rises to the occasion.

What’s become of our great dreams? Have we adjusted wisely to reality, or buried ideals in a tide of cynicism? Mired in our own problems and anxieties, do we struggle more with good news than with bad? If these questions make us squirm, perhaps we need the prayer of Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB: “God help me believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is.”

Remember that the adult Jesus hung out with some unsavory characters: crooks and curmudgeons, loudmouths and lepers, shady ladies and detested tax guys. In his scheme of things, our virtue trips us up more than our sin. The ugly stain of self-righteousness blocks our path to God more than natural, human failures.  Limited as we know ourselves to be, we might ask ourselves the question raised by novelist Gail Godwin, “who of us can say we’re not in the process of being used right now, this Advent, to fulfill some purpose whose grace and goodness would boggle our imagination if we could even begin to get our minds around it?” (“Genealogy and Grace” in Watch for the Light. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2004, 167)

Need a gift to help an older person appreciate all they mean to us? Try A Generous Lap: A Spirituality of Grandparenting. Orbis Books, 800-258-5838, or their website: https://orbisbooks.com/

The human ego resists change, especially as we age. “Gimme my safe rut, even if it’s miserable!” we say, defying logic. But Advent presents a different approach to change.

The names at the beginning of today’s reading from Luke stand like marble pillars, suggesting what appears to be the stoic permanence of the governor, tetrarch and high priest. Against such stony political, military and religious might, how could a voice crying in the desert have any effect at all? Ah, stay tuned… What a topsy-turvy, crazy toppling will ensue.

Change is bound to come our way this season too—the usual routines so disrupted that some people eagerly anticipate the resumption of school and work schedules. But the two key figures of Advent, John the Baptist and Mary have no script foretelling the future, no promise that everything will go back to normal January 6.

Mary models the perfect response to God’s unexpected, even scandalous intervention in her life. When she told Gabriel, “May it be to me as you have said,” she had no guarantees. All she’d learned was the trust handed on by great great-grandmothers: if it comes from God’s hands, it must be perfectly tailored for me. If change brings us serious problems, do we run from them, or lean into them, wondering what they might teach us? Can we befriend our pain, knowing we’re more than its sting?

A stunning example of change occurs in the film “Small Things Like These” in which Cillian Murphy plays Bill Furlong, an Irish coal merchant who through flashbacks re-imagines the loss and grief of his childhood, thus making his final action credible. The film, set in 1985, is based on the novel by Claire Keegan, nominated for the Booker Prize in 2022. As the title suggests, the plot is low-key, restrained, a whisper rather than a shout about the hellish Magdalene laundries.

According to a review in NCR, between 1922 and 1996, more than 10,000 women were enslaved in ten institutions run by Catholic sisters in Ireland. (https://www.ncronline.org/culture/magdalene-laundries-are-topic-new-cillian-murphy-film-small-things-these) The film cites a government investigation into 18 “mother and baby” homes that confined “56,000 unmarried mothers and about 57,000 children” during that same period. This 2021 study also revealed that 9000 children died in these asylums. But in the small Irish town of the film, they function routinely as the pharmacy, bakery or pub.

Delivering coal to the laundry, Bill discovers a desperate young girl locked in the coal shed. When he tells Mother Superior (Emily Watson), she assures him that all is well, the suffering a mere misunderstanding, gilding her hypocrisy with veiled threats to his own five daughters in the sisters’ school, and a subtle bribe to buy his silence. When he tells his wife Eileen, she warns, “If you want to get on in this life, there are things you have to ignore.” A friend adds, “These nuns have a finger in every pie.”

Exactly the death grip of the Irish church on Irish society that one courageous act could start to unlock. Although Keegan insists that Bill is no hero, his last act stirs a resemblance: could he be a contemporary redeemer, his hands covered with coal dust? Maybe this is what Merton meant when he said: in every age, the gospel message speaks anew, indeed to our age, with its unique perplexities, crimes, and shinings. Our job? Pay attention.

Advent again? We might wonder where the year has flown as we dig out the wreath, prayers, four candles. How often have we used that tattered purple ribbon? Can it be camouflaged under the greenery this year too? Can we possibly get together the gifts, decorations, baking etc. in the next 24 days?

Ah, we may be falling into the anxiety trap Jesus describes. A better approach comes from Thomas Merton who writes, “The Gospel is handed down from generation to generation, but it must reach each one of us brand new, or not at all. If it is merely ‘tradition’ and not news, it is not Gospel.”  (Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p. 127) No same ol’, same ol’ –or as Jesus says, “stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

A marvelous newness stirs me awake this year: through the book Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories by Debie Thomas (Cascade Books, 2022). I hadn’t known this author before, but she has startling, refreshing insights into gospels stories that may have grown overly familiar. Her special sensitivity to women reassures me: I’m not the only one to seek their hidden stories. She points out how Jesus invites the woman with the 12-year flow of blood to tell her “whole truth” (Mark 5:25-35). He insists she come forward, not skulk away in shame, and he listens: even if she stammers, stumbles, or takes all day. She has been diminished and ostracized, but his careful attention “renames the outcast ‘daughter.’”

In the Cana story, Thomas points out how Jesus changes his plans, his timeline for love of his mother. “Jesus is no fool; he knows that his countdown to crucifixion will begin as soon as he makes his identity known.” And we cringe, we who are overly devoted to our deadlines and our plans–when the stakes are far higher for him.

If we’ve grown jaded about the gospel and want to rediscover the vulnerable Jesus who notices, who pivots, who astonishes, this book gives a fine nudge. And Thomas deftly interweaves highly relevant personal experiences, so it’s clear: She Gets It. An added bonus–we like the same authors: Barbara Brown Taylor, Mary Gordon, Brene Brown, Frederick Buechner, Parker Palmer.

Recently, I’ve been reading Merton with his focus on contemplation and Teilhard de Chardin, who praises the Creator, and Kathleen Singh who comes from a Buddhist perspective. Thomas brought me back to the humanity of Jesus, who got tired, thirsty, and relished the feel of ointment on dry skin.  Poignantly, he compares himself to a mother hen, wings stretched wide in welcome, whose children refuse to draw near. Yet still, she calls us home; “she will not fold her wings and turn away.”

Although I’ve just begun this book, I’ve also ordered Thomas’ A Faith of Many Rooms: Inhabiting a More Spacious Christianity and two copies of Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories for Christmas gifts.  This newness stuff gets addictive!

The Thanksgiving blog is fun to write, because I get to choose the best entries in my gratitude journal for the last year. Some patterns repeat—frequent mention of cookies, shafts of sun on flowers, the play of light on water. But here are a few that seem to be unique this year:

The way memory can transform, so that during a grueling weightlifting class, I’m mentally elsewhere—aboard a vaporetto approaching Venice, spray in our faces, outlines of domes and campaniles ahead

The gift of a spiritual director who doesn’t confine his attention to the allotted hour, but follows up with e-mail and book recommendations, CD loans. Without his deeply sensitive listening, my transition to the Bay Area 9 years ago would’ve been much harder  

Waking during the night and discovering: still 2 or 3 more hours of sleep to go!

A friendship of over 70 years—we went to kindergarten together—someone so consistently gracious and generous it’s been an honor to have her company this long. She’s the kind of person who during lunch, long before anyone else has thought about the bill, slips her credit card to the waitress. Or the minute I send her good news of my daughter’s wedding, responds immediately and whole heartedly

The cheerful kindness of helpers at the grocery store

Marvelously (and sometimes darkly) addictive streaming on PBS: “Broadchurch,” “Astrid,” “Professor T,” “Poetry in America,” “The Marlow Murder Club,” “Call the Midwife,” “Magpie Murders,” “Moonflower Murders,” “Mr. Bates vs The Post Office,” and several on other channels too

Packing a suitcase, remembering the last trip, anticipating the one to come

The easy rhythm of routine, so we needn’t think of every next step

Doing a shoulder stand at yoga, straight and clean as a candle

Surprising gift of an hour here or there—an exercise class cancels, a car mechanic finishes sooner than expected, parents get home early after grammy’s childcare

Happy cacophony of trash trucks clunking along their routes, doing their jobs

Unanticipated cards, texts, calls or e-mails from friends, family or unexpected folks

Patches of blue marbling the sky after a long stretch of grey

An evening reading by the fireplace, totally absorbed in Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate

A first-grade teacher who is awake at 3 am brainstorming more strategies to help students who are a year behind in reading.

Lap swim in summer—held between cobalt sky and azure water

The fragrance of home-made pizza drifting through the heating vents on a chilly night

Returning to authors who were old favorites—Merton, Rupp, Finley, Teilhard, Oliver, Dillard, Patchett—and meeting new treasures—Singh, Penny

The steady fidelity of mail delivery trucks pulling out of the Post Office every morning

First wink of a red cherry tomato hidden under leaves in the garden

Getting everything on the day’s “To Do” list DONE

The green shimmer of hummingbirds drinking deep at my feeder

Hiking beneath redwoods whose feathery tops brush the sky, reminding that beyond human concerns, God is sovereign and Love has the final word.

And now, dear reader, in the spirit of gratitude, add your own…

Joyce Rupp is a precious treasure in the world of spirituality, and I’d say that even if she weren’t my friend. If, like me, you’re overwhelmed by the thought of holiday shopping, her books are perennial favorites, read and re-read—and you’re in luck for the gift list. The newest: Vessels of Love is available from Orbis Press: 800-258-5838, orbisbooks.com.

It’s for those who wonder about aging: if they’ll become invisible or marginalized, “put on the shelf” with a condescending pat on the head. It’s especially appropriate for those who want to acknowledge the negatives that may come–illness, memory loss, loneliness—but also see the equally wonderful gifts of this time. For those in the thick of aging, she models how to light-heartedly laugh at our foibles and forgetfulness.

Rupp is well-qualified to guide people through this life chapter, as she has through many others in previous books. For over forty years, she’s directed people on the spiritual path, so she understands the wide diversity in how they approach the divine. She values the many traditions who benefit from her work, and wants to be not a parental voice, but one who, at 80, honestly shares her own life experiences.

The book is divided into prayers–preceded by captivating quotes, followed by discussion prompts–and poems, all taste-tested by her panel of experts in an Eldering workshop. Her topics are often those people don’t want to talk about—“Having a Medical Procedure,” “Releasing Regrets,” “Moving into a Senior Residence,” “When Adult Children Take Over,” “After a Tumble in the Shower,” for instance. The concise, witty writing, never flowery nor sentimental invites discussion and encouragement—as one chaplain used it in assisted living.

The book’s title is symbolic of healthy aging: vessels may pour forth, and they are also being filled. To see an aging person as a “vat of matured wine” brings zest, spirit and sparkle to the process. Who wouldn’t want to become a “crucible of kindness,” poured out for others? With Rupp setting our direction, we can celebrate the festival of lights within, an abundance of memories, blessings and gifts.

To see and hear Joyce Rupp in person, interviewed by publisher Robert Ellsberg about this book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Np4dxcpaY&list=PL_I9zTQkaIOvdWF_dm6kbINWCZ-fkjpXt&index=2

Before seeing “Conclave,” my friend and I had lunch together—during which I pontificated self-righteously about the Catholic hierarchy not being of any particular interest. I’m intrigued by other modalities of Catholicism, I explained to this good Presbyterian, like creation spirituality, mysticism, and social justice. But the election of a pope by only men, wearing red skirts? Not so much…

HA! Then I got totally caught up in “Conclave’s” surprising drama: the ironies of the guys in crimson beanies arriving with their wheelies; the supposedly powerless nuns who cook for them having a hidden clout; the character of Cardinal Lawrence riveting because of his vulnerability. Ralph Fiennes plays Thomas Lawrence, dean of the college of cardinals, tasked with convening the papal election and running it smoothly. He shares his reluctance with his witty friend Cardinal Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), but plunges gamely into some tricky plot twists. It’s a unique mix of ancient ritual, modern security, Latin formulae, Sistine Chapel, and the sudden shock of terrorist bombs.

The moving theme comes in Lawrence’s opening homily: “certainty is the deadly enemy of unity. If there were only certainty, there’d be no mystery and no need for faith. Let’s elect a pope who doubts.” Wisely, Lawrence sees that certainty is the stuff of demagogues, not for the followers of a poor carpenter. Easy to imagine how that annoys the sanctimonious conservatives, represented by Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) who wants a Latin Mass and calls Muslim terrorists “animals.” No doubts for him, by gum! But it will have direct bearing: the one who’s ultimately elected “lives in the spaces between certainties.”

The humanity of the cardinals, their parallels to politicians (yup, there’s intrigue, bribery, scandal, progressive vs. conservative factions) help us see that the drive for power is no different when it’s cloaked beneath medieval custom and swirling robes. We sense a coiled tension smoldering in Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini), who’s been told her inferior position, but clearly doesn’t believe it. At a crucial moment, she disrupts the male domination: “Although we sisters are supposed to be invisible, God has nevertheless given us eyes and ears.”

Despite the gender disparity, it’s heartening to see the racial and cultural diversity in the gathering. Lawrence is stunned when a surprise cardinal–Benitez, Archbishop of Kabul, turns up unexpectedly. Turns out he’d been appointed secretly “in pectore,” (how evocative, that mysterious term remembered from childhood), a protection in dangerous circumstances. Bellini quips, “How many Catholics are there in Afghanistan?” But Lawrence finds his credentials impeccable, and Benitez rightly criticizes the men who battle each other when they haven’t experienced the real wars he has.

To reveal the surprise ending would be behaving like the lowest cad in the hierarchy—so no disclosures here. Let’s just say a stunned Lawrence has to sit down for a moment–and it left us grinning and cheering as we left the theater.

Anyone seeking directions on a website or application will discover many routes by different forms of transportation: bus, car, foot, rapid transit, etc. So too, the saints have found multiple ways to God—or perhaps with vast creative power, God finds multiplies ways to reach them.

Consider, for instance the dazzling diversity between Junipero Serra, who poured energies into building a string of California mission churches, and Thomas Merton, who wrote of the same building: “The church was stifling with solemn, feudal and unbreathable fictions. … The spring outside seemed much more sacred. . . .  Easter afternoon I went to the lake and sat in silence looking at the green buds, the wind skimming the utterly silent surface of the water, a muskrat slowly paddling to the other side… One could breathe. The alleluias came back by themselves. “[1]

Unsung saints continue to pioneer wildly diverse roads today: in the research hospitals that seek a cure for Alzheimer’s, the labs that discover new ways to purify water or use solar power in Africa, the schools that encourage and educate neglected or traumatized children. They carve paths in subtler ways that are no less holy: the parents caring for the autistic child who try different ways each day to touch him, the artist or musician who gives audiences another way to see or hear, the mother trying a new recipe for the hungry kids, the spouse of the Alzheimer’s patient, the scientists who discover alternate forms of energy and innovations to preserve the planet’s resources.

The church’s shorthand often refers to a puzzling group. For instance, St. Isaac Jogues “and companions.” Did the unnamed ones not bleed as profusely, scream in as much pain, shake with as many convulsions when they were tortured? Or in more peaceful terms, did the initial six and many sisters who later accompanied Marianne Cope not work as hard in the leper colony of Molokai? When her energies flagged, she probably still got up in the morning because they were all counting on each other. Father Palou, Serra’s friend and biographer, shared the heartache and ordeals, but who’s ever heard of him? Fifteen unknown sisters helped Katharine Drexel found her first school for native Americans in 1893; by 1903, eleven Navajo women were nuns prepared to carry on her work.

And what about the Irish priests who defended Julia Greeley, or arranged for the early education of Augustine Tolton, who escaped slavery in Missouri as a child and became the first black priest? What of the Franciscans who, when Tolton was rejected by seminaries in the U.S., sent him to Rome for education and ordination, or who supported Cesar Chavez’ early efforts?  

Americans love heroes, but sometimes we overlook the people who support the star. As Carol Flinders points out in Enduring Grace, we must “see the incandescent superstar for what it is, but … see the constellation in which it has come into being, too, the reverent and loving care that has surrounded and nourished it.”[2]

Theologian Elizabeth Johnson names the feast of All Saints the one for “’anonymous,’ whom the world counts as nobodies and whom the church, too, has lost track of but who are held in the embrace of God who loses not one.”[3] The letters of Paul address all the early Christians as “saints,” even when he gets frustrated with their angry feuding.

In what arenas do we still need pioneer saints today? Surely, in health care, immigration, poverty, the environment, rightful places for women in church and society, education, an end to human trafficking; the list is endless. And in many other fields, needs are still undefined. There the saints of tomorrow will shine. If we’re alert, we might even notice them moving subtly among us now.

Excerpt from When the Saints Came Marching In by Kathy Coffey, Liturgical Press, 800-858-5450, litpress.org

[1] Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), 295.

[2] Carol Flinders, Enduring Grace (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 219.

[3] Elizabeth Johnson, Friends of God and Prophets (New York: Continuum, 1999), 250.

Anyone seeking directions on a website or application will discover many routes by different forms of transportation: bus, car, foot, rapid transit, etc. So too, the saints have found multiple ways to God—or perhaps with vast creative power, God finds multiplies ways to reach them.

Consider, for instance the dazzling diversity between Junipero Serra, who poured energies into building a string of California mission churches, and Thomas Merton, who wrote of the same building: “The church was stifling with solemn, feudal and unbreathable fictions. … The spring outside seemed much more sacred. . . .  Easter afternoon I went to the lake and sat in silence looking at the green buds, the wind skimming the utterly silent surface of the water, a muskrat slowly paddling to the other side… One could breathe. The alleluias came back by themselves. “[1]

Unsung saints continue to pioneer wildly diverse roads today: in the research hospitals that seek a cure for Alzheimer’s, the labs that discover new ways to purify water or use solar power in Africa, the schools that encourage and educate neglected or traumatized children. They carve paths in subtler ways that are no less holy: the parents caring for the autistic child who try different ways each day to touch him, the artist or musician who gives audiences another way to see or hear, the mother trying a new recipe for the hungry kids, the spouse of the Alzheimer’s patient, the scientists who discover alternate forms of energy and innovations to preserve the planet’s resources.

The church’s shorthand often refers to a puzzling group. For instance, St. Isaac Jogues “and companions.” Did the unnamed ones not bleed as profusely, scream in as much pain, shake with as many convulsions when they were tortured? Or in more peaceful terms, did the initial six and many sisters who later accompanied Marianne Cope not work as hard in the leper colony of Molokai? When her energies flagged, she probably still got up in the morning because they were all counting on each other. Father Palou, Serra’s friend and biographer, shared the heartache and ordeals, but who’s ever heard of him? Fifteen unknown sisters helped Katharine Drexel found her first school for native Americans in 1893; by 1903, eleven Navajo women were nuns prepared to carry on her work.

And what about the Irish priests who defended Julia Greeley, or arranged for the early education of Augustine Tolton, who escaped slavery in Missouri as a child and became the first black priest? What of the Franciscans who, when Tolton was rejected by seminaries in the U.S., sent him to Rome for education and ordination, or who supported Cesar Chavez’ early efforts?  

Americans love heroes, but sometimes we overlook the people who support the star. As Carol Flinders points out in Enduring Grace, we must “see the incandescent superstar for what it is, but … see the constellation in which it has come into being, too, the reverent and loving care that has surrounded and nourished it.”[2]

Theologian Elizabeth Johnson names the feast of All Saints the one for “’anonymous,’ whom the world counts as nobodies and whom the church, too, has lost track of but who are held in the embrace of God who loses not one.”[3] The letters of Paul address all the early Christians as “saints,” even when he gets frustrated with their angry feuding.

In what arenas do we still need pioneer saints today? Surely, in health care, immigration, poverty, the environment, rightful places for women in church and society, education, an end to human trafficking; the list is endless. And in many other fields, needs are still undefined. There the saints of tomorrow will shine. If we’re alert, we might even notice them moving subtly among us now.

Excerpt from When the Saints Came Marching In by Kathy Coffey, Liturgical Press, 800-858-5450, litpress.org

[1] Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), 295.

[2] Carol Flinders, Enduring Grace (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 219.

[3] Elizabeth Johnson, Friends of God and Prophets (New York: Continuum, 1999), 250.