The Importance of studying the lives of Saints
June 24, 2022
Many times some would say in amazement: Who can carry out these principles?! Is it really possible for one to turn the other cheek to the one who slapped him? (Matthew 5:39). Is it possible that one always ought to pray and not lose heart? (Luke 18:1) to pray without ceasing? (1 Thessolians 5:17) is it possible for one to give all he has to the poor? (Matthew 19:21) We see all these questions and many similar ones answered and presented in the lives of the Saints. The whole commandments and teachings of God may seem as being theoretical. But in the lives of the Saints, we see them carrying out the Lord’s commandments in their everyday lives.
Saints are humans but yet by their lives manifest the power of God at work in them. When we honour them as the heroes of our faith, we honour God who has worked in them to bring about holiness, faithfulness, humility and every other virtue.
In a truly amazing way that calls for great admiration of the spirituality of these righteous ones, they were raised above the level of material and body, as if they were earthly Angels. They lived in the spirit with God, a life of complete victory over all the wars of the enemy. We may even say that they returned to the divine image in which Man was created from the beginning. Their lives give encouragement to any person to continue on the spiritual path with no fear or hesitation.
The life of righteousness is then possible and available for whoever asks for it. The grace of God is willing to work in every heart and raise it to the highest level, no matter what its condition. The Spirit of God works leading souls towards God, granting them all prospects and gifts. It was the living history that was read by their generation who lived with it and passed it onto future generations.
It was the divine inspiration itself that passed to us the lives of many Prophets and Apostles, and so some of the books in the Holy Bible were named after them. These books explain to us God’s work in them, the message that God entrusted to them and their Holy lives.
They were recorded in a book called the “Synaxarium”. During each Liturgy, we read one or more stories of those Saints whose feast day falls on the same day as the Holy Mass. Their stories are read to comfort and give us consolation. The Church also reads to the faithful another part of the lives of the pure Apostles from the “Praxis” which is “The Acts of the Apostles”. Many are the feasts that the Church holds for these Saints, celebrating the memory and conveying to all their virtuous lives.
Their icons in the Churches are placed with candles before them to remind us of the lives of these Saints, which may become food for our spirit and an opportunity to contemplate on their virtues. How beautiful is the saying of Mar Isaac: “Delicious are the lives of the saints, like water to new plants.” It is a spiritual food that nobody can do without. It brings to us the feeling of God’s love and the love of His ways that lead to the Kingdom. It also makes us love virtue and love those righteous Saints and take them as our fathers and intercessors. We aspire to deepen our relationship with them, as if they were alive with us on earth, so we talk to them and call on them.
Due to our love for them and for their lives, we sometimes call ourselves after their names. We thank God that in these days, many are named after the Saints. We give their names to our children so they grow up to love the Saints. It is also in recognition of our love for them and our admiration of their lives. The same when one is consecrated a monk or ordained a Priest. He is given the name of one of these Saints to show our recognition of the Holy life that belongs to this good name.
We honour and respect them, in the way that we learn from their lives, study their writings, and seek to follow their example of the Christian life. When we place icons of them in our Churches and homes it is so that we might be reminded in a very practical way of the teaching of the Scriptures…
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Lord Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. (Hebrews 12:1)
But the Orthodox Church also asks these departed faithful servants of God to pray for us, who are struggling here on earth. We do not believe that those who have departed are asleep, or no longer exist until the resurrection. On the contrary, we believe that they are even more alive in Christ than ourselves, and united with his love in a way that we have not yet experience. They are moved by God’s own compassion to pray for us, with knowledge and by a means that is known to God but is rooted in love.
Our own intercession and the divine mediation of Lord Jesus Christ are completely different things. Therefore when any Christian was to reject any representation of anything at all then we would have to abandon photography, art of all kinds, even the television. So it is clear that we do not interpret this passage as meaning that the creation of images is forbidden. Indeed we can see from the archaeology of the early Church, especially in the catacombs and the earliest Church buildings of the first centuries, which art was always used by Christians to represent things in the world, Angels and the stories of the Gospel, and even those who had died as faithful believers.
Seeking the intercessions of those who have departed has nothing in common with spirits and is not an attempt to communicate with the departed by summoning their spirits. Rather it is a hopeful expression and request, offered in the expectation that by whatever means God allows and chooses, those who were filled with love for those around them in this life will continue to express that love through their intercessions before Lord Jesus Christ now that they are in His presence.
May the intercession of Saints be with us, Amen!
Source:- Homily in Saint Takla, Coptic Orthodox Church Heritage and Saint Mary and Saint Cyril Coptic Orthodox Church