Monday 1 November 2021

'A Seasoning to our Earthly Life': A Thought for the Feast of All Saints

 


November 1 is the Feast of All Saints and below is a reflection on the importance of recording the lives of the saints from Saint Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of Saint Malachy the Irishman. We will be marking the Feast of Saint Malachy on November 3 and the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland on November 6, but this thought from the Preface to Saint Bernard's work relates to the significance of all of the saints we commemorate on this day, November 1:

To describe the lives of the saints has ever been a precious task, since they serve as an example, or as it were, a seasoning to our earthly life. Thus, in a certain way, though dead, they live again among us, and many of those living in spiritual death are brought to the truth and recalled to eternal life. And now, verily, the rarity of sanctity makes this so much the more necessary; since it is plain that our times are lacking in men.

Stanley S. Morrison, “Saint Malachy of Armagh (1095-1148).” The Irish Monthly, vol. 76, no. 906, (1948), p. 558.

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