On the feast of All Saints Day, America Media and the University of Chicago’s Lumen Christi Institute, along with a number of other organizations, co-sponsored a presentation by the eminent church historian John O’Malley, S.J., on the veneration of saints. Greek scholar Irini de Saint Sernin offered a brief word of welcome on behalf of Father Mark Rotsaert, S.J., the president of the Bollandist Society. Father O’Malley pointed out that the Bollandistes, as they are known in Europe, are a hidden treasure of the Society of Jesus and of the universal church in general.
This organization of scholars is dedicated to “critical study of Greek, Latin, Oriental and modern hagiographic sources as well as to the history of the saints and their cults in all their aspects.” Its roots date back to Father Jean Bolland (1596-1665), a Flemish academic and expert in manuscripts who dedicated his life to study of the Acta Sanctorum, the “acts of the saints,” and their public veneration.
As we mark each November, the communion of saints and the intergenerational, diachronic (“moving through time”) relationships which we believe exist between us and those who have gone before us — including Jesus — constitute an integral part of the Catholic imagination. The importance of theological realities like the lex orandi (“the law of prayer”), the sensus fidelium (“the sense of the faithful”) and popular religiosity all have connections to these lived experiences. They are familiar to us in things like pilgrimages, devotions, novenas, miracles and meditating on the vitas/lives of the saints. The Bollandistes recognize the crucial role that such veneration and appeals for intercession have played in the lives of countless believers. They understand that scholarly study of this dimension of the faith deepens, never dilutes or contradicts, a robust understanding of Christianity and culture(s), and the related commitment to dialogue that existence in a modern pluralist world demands.
In the Scriptures, we are told that the early Christian authors can be trusted because they serve as witnesses to the events which they describe. The historical-critical method has taught us that this testimony was more often communal and oral, rather than strictly textual and autobiographical in the earliest years, though some figures, such as Paul, straddle those boundaries a bit. But the vocation to serve as witnesses, which is the root of our word “martyr,” has molded every generation of Christians for two millennia. Confessing and witnessing are not extrinsic or secondary to a life of faith, or actions that can either be taken up or discarded at will. They are instead intrinsic and defining characteristics of who we are. This is the reason why the arc of All Hallows’ Eve (Oct. 31), All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2) remains a sort of liturgical zenith between the Assumption and Advent.
While Father O’Malley is most famous for his studies of the councils of Trent, Vatican I and Vatican II, he is also exceptionally well-read in a variety of fields. And so, he was quick to elucidate that sociologists and anthropologists argue that every culture, including secular ones, seeks out ways to fulfill the quintessential human need to honor heroes, to demonstrate respect and fellowship with ancestors, and to preserve physical mementos to bring the past closer to mind. That helped me personally realize why this feast has been a particular favorite of mine since childhood, which I fully recognize made me a bit of an unusual adolescent. But I sensed early on somehow that when my Catholic primary school closed the day after trick-or-treating, it was for something more significant than to allow us to gorge ourselves on candy. There was always an impression, albeit inchoate and amorphous at the time, that this feast was about connecting me to something so much larger than the constricting limits of my provincial childhood world, even before the elaborate and horizon-expanding experiences of the dia de los muertos in the Latin cultures came to be on my radar later in life. Today I see much more clearly what I could not put into words then: that the feast was always the clearest example of acknowledging how the living and deceased cloud of witnesses permeates and shapes the sense of self and of community that each of us long for and continue to struggle to define, express and effectuate throughout our lives.
The Bollandistes recognize that such narratives and myths profoundly form us as a people, and demand rigorous study and close philological attention. Their international labors today draw on cutting edge technology, and remain relevant because the last 150 years have seen exponentially more canonizations and martyrdoms than earlier periods of church history. We can be grateful that such an association exists to specialize in the exacting and erudite analysis of ancient and modern hagiographies in our emphatically anti-intellectual age. Their work can be explored and supported at www.Bollandistes.org.
Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., teaches at Loyola University, Chicago.
at the bottom and then tap “Add to Home Screen”
