Table Talk - Unexpected Saints

Below is the weekly chaplain's newsletter called 'Table Talk' that I write for the Lower School division of Holy Innocents' Episcopal School.

Golden Bears and Parents,

Saints are central figures in the Episcopal tradition. At least once a month in chapel, we sing a favorite hymn called ‘I Sing A Song Of The Saints of God’. One of the lyrics goes:

They lived not only in ages past,

there are hundreds of thousands still.

These words are a great reminder that to find saints we need not look only to the past. A saint is anyone whose life serves as a witness to the love of God, and while it’s true that we encounter saints when we set aside days to celebrate and remember people like St. Francis or Martin Luther King, Jr., our most frequent meetings with saints are those quiet, daily occurances when we find God’s beauty and inspiration shining through the people closest to us.

My lesson in chapel this past week was about how naming the saints around us and identifying the ways they share God’s love makes it easier to find God’s presence and activity in the world. Naming saints is exactly what we’ve been doing in class, and it’s been very inspiring to see how many students recognize moms, dads, siblings, grandparents, classmates, and teachers as saints.

Students are realizing that you don’t have to be perfect to be a saint (we’re human, after all). Instead, the beauty of saints is that the perfect light and love of God gracefully shines through our imperfections. God uses saints to perfect our imperfect lives, and, as the song reminds us:

You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,

In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;

For the saints of God are just folk like me,

And I mean to be one too.

This week, I pray that you keep your eyes and soul open to the communion of saints that surrounds us.

Don’t be perfect. Just be saintly.

With love and prayers, 

Chaplain Timothy