Santa Lucia, ora pro nobis!

Today is the third Sunday of Advent: Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday; it is also St Lucy’s Day. One of the things I like best about the church as institution (and there's plenty I don't like about it!) is the way its liturgical year makes every day special. I'm aware that some Christian denominations don’t follow any liturgical calendar, and some observe only the big feasts. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but how much one misses! Stick a pin in a liturgical calendar and find an obscure saint, and then look that saint up. There will be something in their life that strikes a chord with you, and if you look up the saint of the day every day for a year you will be astonished at the variety of them. Saint Lucy was one of the many early virgin martyrs, and very little is definitely known about her; but take even the little we know and compare her with (for example) Alphonsus Liguori, the lawyer and founder of the Redemptorists, or Jane Frances de Chantal, wife and mother, the illiterate and disabled shepherdess Germaine Cousin, the scholar John Henry Newman…and indeed John the Baptist and Jesus, so different that John began to have his doubts about Jesus’ own credentials, and you realise just how catholic (with a lower or upper-case C, as you prefer) this church of ours is, how inclusive, how able to see the beauty of holiness wherever it is to be found.

I was brought up as a fairly traditional Catholic, and remember being quite shocked when a hippy friend of my mother’s told me firmly that holy water was nonsense, not because it was a sacramental but because “All water is holy”. These words come back to me now after a lifetime’s thinking and praying and battling with the question (among others) of what is, and what is not, holy. And I find that I have come to agree with Biddy. My route is very unlike hers, but here we are in the same place. The Church of Scotland used to be very hesitant about celebrating Christmas, because the one great feast is Easter, which is echoed each Sunday. The Quakers do not celebrate any day in preference to any other, because all days are holy. I entirely agree that all days are holy, but my conclusion, for the moment at least, is the Catholic one that a good way of expressing the holiness of each day is to assign a saint or a Biblical event to each one and celebrate them with all our might.

I am aware that there are some, especially in the Reformed tradition, who feel that venerating the saints detracts from our worship of God; they point out that we do not need any mediator between ourselves and God, neither priest nor saint nor angel, but can with confidence approach the throne of grace, not in our own righteousness but because Christ has died for us. This is absolutely true and so I can understand that point of view. However, another point of view is that celebrating the saints positively adds to our worship of God. Those of you who have heard me preach more than once will be heartily sick of hearing that we are made in the image and likeness of God. But I don’t say it because it is something that one says. I say it because it is wonderful, in its true sense of wonder-full, that there is visibly “that of God” in me, visibly that of God in you, in you…in everyone. God has left his traces everywhere, to be seen by anyone who will look. And that’s what the saints, this great cloud of witnesses, shows us.

And there’s something else. Those of you who go to the 9.45 service will have noticed that some of the texts change during Advent. In the introduction to the service there is this phrase: “In Advent we dare to see the world through God’s eyes”. I think that is a mind-blowing phrase. We dare to see the world through God’s eyes. We know what the world looks like through God’s eyes: God looked on it, and behold it was very good. Yes, there was the small matter of the Fall, however you interpret that, but Christ has cancelled that out. In God’s eyes the world is ineffably beautiful. You can see that in the passage from Isaiah that we have just heard. That is what the world will look like when all things are completed in Christ and God’s image shines out from it undimmed; and we will see it as God sees it, as it truly is. There is infinite variety because God is infinite, and he will never run out of new ways to reflect his own beauty in his created images. Looking at the saints is also seeing the world through God’s eyes. We admire God in them, yes, but also we see humankind as God sees it. You are as beautiful as Francis, as Lucy, as Thomas Aquinas, as Peter and Paul.

I can hear some of you thinking: This is all very nice. It is all very easy. Possibly a bit too easy. We have been taught that following Jesus is difficult. And isn’t Advent a time for repentance? Indeed Advent is a time for repentance, even if today, the third Sunday, is traditionally a day off. But the kind of repentance that Jesus looks for is not sitting in sackcloth and ashes, which is not always very constructive, but metanoia: a change of mind, a change of attitude, a turning away from evil and towards God. Meditating on our sins, while it may be a salutary exercise, is not a useful or healthy condition to remain in. And not only is the carrot more effective than the stick, but also, if you don’t look at what you are aiming at, you are unlikely to hit the mark. Given the choice of dwelling on sin, even in order to become thoroughly disgusted by mine, or dwelling on the beauty of God and of God’s image in me, I am pretty sure which one will bring me closer to God and what God intended me to be.

Oh, and is it so easy for most of us to believe in our heart: I am greatly loved, God thinks I am special and beautiful and I remind him of Jesus. Is it? Try it. Really try it. If I were a betting woman I’d say a million to one it makes you feel guilty. But on the contrary, the more we believe that and act on it, the more likely we are to be following Jesus, and the more like him we will become.

Adrian Plass comments in connection with John the Baptist: “God gave John the best possible start for the tough times that were to come, didn’t he? It is hard to imagine a son ever having been wanted more than this one. Being loved and wanted was the best possible launching pad for the rest of John’s life. Indeed being valued and appreciated is rocket fuel for the future of any child. We must be very tender with those who have not had this kind of start. It’s all very well to say how fellow believers should behave, but if you’ve never been loved it really is ever so hard to be good.”

There’s the clue. It’s hard to be good if your eyes are focused on evil, even the evil of your own sins. I would even dare to say that that is the devil’s view of the world. The devil looks at sin and ugliness. That’s his job. The more the better. Do we want to see the world through the devil’s eyes? St Paul gives us this instruction for “being good”, not to dwell on our sins or (much less) the sins of others, but rather: “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. And the God of peace will be with you”.

And so let us pray to today’s saint: Saint Lucy, your name means light. By the light of faith which God gave you, increase and preserve this light in our souls so that we may avoid evil, hold fast to what is good, and hate nothing so much as the blindness and darkness of evil and sin. By your intercession with God, obtain for us clear vision and the grace to use it for God's glory and the salvation of all humankind.