For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts.

Last week was All Saints Sunday. Today commemorates the feast of all local saints – in Russia it’s All Saints of Russia, in Serbia, All Saints of Serbia. Here it’s All Saints of America. We loose site, I think, of the point, however in our youth. The church here is less than 200 years old and our American hymns list all the saints that have been glorified in our country and in Canada.

Rejoice, O continent of North America, illumined by the holy Gospel!
Rejoice, every province, state, city and town,
which raised up citizens of the heavenly Kingdom!
Rejoice, our venerable Father Herman, first saint of our land!
Rejoice O Martyrs Juvenaly and Peter,
for your blood has watered the seed of faith planted in Alaska!
Rejoice, O holy Hierarchs: Innocent, Tikhon, Nicholas and Raphael!
Rejoice, O holy Fathers Alexis, John, and all righteous priests!
Rejoice, All Saints of North America,
for your light has shone forth to the ends of the earth!
We beseech you to pray to Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

However, to list by name all the saints glorified in Russia or Greece, or any of the Elder countries of our faith, would take much longer than even we Orthodox are used to talking in Church! Today is not a day to celebrate just the actions of the local church body (one gets the sense that in America, the OCA is making political hay with this feast). Today is a day to celebrate all the holy men and women in out lands…

Rather than the saints who have “shown forth” in ways that we can see, who are the saints of America that the Church has not seen?

Be sure to weave in the verses from Saint Paul: this isn’t about Christians… ands this feast certainly isn’t about Orthodox Christians. This day is about all those who “do instinctively what the law requires”.

We probably need to ask what are the works that the law requires? Did St Paul imagine that there were gentiles who had gotten themselves circumcised and kept the Sabbath and a Kosher kitchen – even thought they had never heard of the Torah? Probably not: I doubt not but that the Gentiles he was thinking of we polytheists, “idolators” in the Jewish mind. But they manage to “do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God”.

And we, ourselves – I think especially of Orthodox Converts in America – might go looking for those who do what the law requires – as people who are venerating icons properly, who know how to fast keeping all the rules. Certainly that leaves out all the sloppy ethnic types who are, at least here in Buffalo, even now, celebrating their ethnic festival, eating meat and what not in ways that Ain’t Really Orthodox! Makes you feel good that you skipped the dairy in your coffee, eh?

My friend Ana Hernandez used to say to me, “sometimes the Pagans are better Christians than the Christians.”

Again: we’re not talking about “Works righteousness” here. We’re talking about men and women who show the power of God in their lives without even knowing it.

The Akathist of Thanksgiving, that we sing on the last wednesday of every month, says,

The breath of Your Holy Spirit inspires artists, poets, scientists. The power of Your supreme knowledge makes them prophets and interpreters of Your laws, who reveal the depths of Your creative wisdom. Their works speak unwittingly of You. How great are You in Your creation! How great are You in man!

And hearing that I think of the awe that I have watching the wonderful series, “Cosmos” by Dr Carl Sagan. Or any of the BBC or PBS series on animal life such as Nature or Life or planet Earth. I can not watch one of these things without singing (while sometimes weeping) “How glorious are thy works, O Lord, in wisdom hast thou made them all!” You – secular scientist – have brought me to my knees in awe as surely as the iconographer who painted the image of the Theotokos of the Cup. Even without desiring it or willing it, the light of God shines through your works!

Who else lets the light shine?

It is, perhaps, de rigueur to speak of Martin Luther King, but we might also wonder about others, even less popular. What about the founders of the Haight Ashbury free clinic or the Doctors who work there, what about the founders of soup kitchens or those who work with migrant workers and defend them from our racist attacks and greedy corporations? What about those who died to give peace or those who raised up the standard of peace when all cries were for war?

Who are the saints who shine in our lands?

Eleanor Roosevelt? Black Elk? Chief Seattle?

Who are they who – even not knowing the rules – manage to be better Christians than even the Christians?

Who showed a generous hospitality even when invaded and conquered?

Who turned the other cheek and prayed for their enemies even when the enemies were us?

Who lit the way when all was dark?

Who used their skills to improve the world even when we were not wanting their help?

And against all the yeses for people you might expect, I imagine the millions of slaves and indentured servants, the migrant workers and undocumented immigrants, chinese railroad workers and native american warriors who have through out our history and even to now are giving their lives in the gentle Christ-like ways of Passion Bearers.

As the hands of “good, white Americans” make martyrs of millions.

Today is All Saints of America. And our Icon shows – as you might expect – a handful of respectable men in clergy drag plus one young boy.

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, however. Of every tongue and tribe and colour.

If we can only see.

On the coincidence of All Saints Sunday and Memorial day weekend….

But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

Tomorrow the President will lay a wreath at the tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, in a ceremony that will be repeated over and over by governors and even mayors all over the country. I remember places in my youth where this weekend serves also as a memorial for firefighters and police. Everyone decked in solemn colours, nationalist and patriotic melodies sung and played. WOmen and men will be honoured for their self-sacrifice in the name of service to their country, their people, their family and friends.

That is one way to read this weekend. A second way, certainly counter-cultural, radical notes that while many stood as patriots – I think here, especially, of the men and women who rushed to offer themselves for service after Pearl Harbour and in the dust cloud of 9/11 – most of them over the last 200-plus years, for all their humanity and love, were pressed into service, drafted or, in the case of many in the Union Army in the internecine conflict of the 19th Century, tricked.

Many who join the armed forces do so because they are offered no other choice in their poverty and lack of education or in their unemployment. Or because they were forced to join – again, because of their class or race preventing them other oportunities.

And in their death – for oil, nationalist conflict, racist imperialism – our culture turns them into propaganda. We call them martyrs and we hold their images and memory up before ourselves to stir ourselves to like-wise make sacrifices. To believe in something that is not real, to cover up the things that are.

And even 70 years later, we ask questions about Pearl Harbour and the motives of the allies and axis in WW2, the establishment of the Military Industrial Complex on the backs of Patriots, or the desires of the Founders to create a working-class nation to, essentially, work for the upper classes and enslave the natives.

But we call them martyrs.

Another reading sees them all as victims of sin: man’s inability to live in the love and peace offered to us by God causes the death of many who might be innocent or even sinful themselves. Regardless of the motive or intention, it is our fallen state for which they die. Rather than some heavenly good, it is only a human good – in our total depravity that’s all we can do.

And I want to accept all of these readings, from the patriot dream to the radical re-vision to the sinful fall. We are, really, all of those things in our daily lives. And I want to not deny that we are all of those things in our political lives and deaths. Adn I want to sing

Crimsoned with the blood of all your martyrs, O Christ, our God, your church cries out to you: Bestow your mercies on all humanity, and grant the world your lasting peace.

For the Church, however, there are Saints and Martyrs and Passion-bearers. These are not classes, or hierarchies of holiness ranked in a legalistic manner. Unlike the Western tradition, there’s no pattern or set of steps to follow to Sainthood. One is either glorified by the Church – with a feast day and hymnody – or one is not. And even when one is not, one may have a local cultus, a local tradition of veneration for, example, Fr Seraphim Rose or King Henry II of England, which may result in eventual glorification by a Church Body – as happened, eventually, to the entire family of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. These are categories in which we place our own sinful reality to relate to it, not ranking of “power” or “holiness” or “merit”.

It is this last category, Passion Bearer, on which I wish to focus this All Saints Sunday.

To be a passion bearer is to live out in one’s own life the faithfulness of Christ, and to meet one’s own death with the resignation and obedience that Christ embodied. One may not “die for one’s faith”, may not be wrestling with heretics or defending the local shrine. One might simply be walking along to the market or caught at school by a pair of crazed gunmen. One may be killed in apolitical action or die on your own bed of some disease or advanced years. One may give one’s life away in service, or some great act of bravery, or some act of common decency.

In the end while some of us are called to be Martyrs, witnesses for Christ in a real life and death sense, all of us are called to be Passion-Bearers, all of us are called to be Saints. In the end we follow a God who chose incarnation – becoming one of us in our flesh – to save us. And now nothing is common.

Here’s the most important, radical, revolutionary thing about Christianity: God has a navel. I don’t know if it was an “inney” or an “outey”. But he has one. More than that, he’s got a penis: and God is a he. In fact, God is one specific man, born in one specific place, among one specific people – although in a melting pot of about many cultures. Surrounding God was Egyptian, Roman, Alexandrian (Ptolemaic), Silk Road, Persian, Fertile Crescent Babylonian, and 5 or 6 that called them selves “Jewish” or “Hebrew”.

More than that, God had diapers. God also probably ran around half-naked urinating and defecating on the ground while adults might have looked and giggled in either embarrassment or parental joy as the child grew up. God had a neighbourhood. God had an older half-brother – and therefore probably suffered from some bullying and maybe even fights like, “Dad loved my mother more than yours.” God had grandparents who spoiled him. God had a mother who doted on him. God had a dad who – according to one reading – was not too highly respected in his community (as a man who worked with his hands). According to another reading God’s dad was quite well respected. God went through puberty and, I have no doubt, suffered from embarrassing erections under his robe, girls flirted with him, and his voice cracked. God had acne and, after a while, back hair.

If we say – with Paul – that in Jesus the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell, well then, the fullness of the Godhead liked (or didn’t like) to eat the lentils his mom cooked. The fullness of the Godhead liked (or didn’t like) to drink goat’s milk. The fullness of the Godhead liked (or didn’t like) to go to Torah school. The exact implication of “the fullness of the Godhead” is that God had a specific colour of hair, of eye, a specific tone of voice, a specific sort of body odour, and even a certain, rustic lack of bathing.

God stopped relieving himself on the ground and, eventually, grew to – like the rest of his culture – learn how to wipe his dirty butt with his left hand.

Nothing is common any more – and holiness can be found in any walk of life lived in a Godward direction. The last, the least, the lowest of our world has become the gateway to the holiest. The Saints are our greatest exemplars, the Church sings…

To you, creator of all things, the cosmos presents the saints as first fruits of creation. For their sake, O saviour, rich in mercy, preserve us all in holiness and peace through the Theotokos.

But the Passion-bearers, the women and men who met their life as Christ himself…

These are us.

My own Patron Saint, Raphael Hawaweeny, traveled around the US by trian and car and horse, meeting people where they were. He gave his life in the service of his people.

Tsar Nicholas is called a passion bearer because of his Christ-like countenance of the destruction of his empire and his eventual death. He was called of God to lead his people at a difficult time in history and did so to the best of his abilities. The religious devotion and piety of the family is well documented and not seriously contested.

Holy Orthodoxy does not draw boundaries around her saints, for along with the Tsar, the ROCOR has also canonised as Passion-Bearers*, all their servants who were killed with them, including Alexei Trupp, who was was Roman Catholic and Catherine Adolphovna Schneider, who was Lutheran!

We hold these all – and many others – to be holy men and women who lived their daily lives as best and as Christlike as they could.

What more could be asked of you or I than to do exactly this?

Let us praise the baptist and forerunner, with the apostles, prophets, and martyrs; let us hymn the hierarchs and all the martyred clergy, the Christ-like and ascetic men and women, and all the just, together with the legions of angels. With hymns of praise, let us crown them as we should, seeking a share in their glory at the hands of Christ, the saviour.

Our own war dead – both for us and against us – we may never know the real why of their death, but we can assume, I think, that they in their end, died honourable deaths seeking to “lay down their lives for their friends” as Jesus says.

Regardless of their faith – or lack of it – the acts of bravery, heroism and charity of which we read and hear so much at this time (and around July 4th) tell us enough to know of the sort of men and women we honour. Make no political claims about it, these people are little Christs among us.

But so are those teachers and shop clerks, those letter carriers and public servants, lawyers and perhaps even elected leaders that stand among us, giving their selves in service in a world that is where the admixture of “good” and “evil” result in most of us having to run on blind faith if we are to make any action at all.

Doing the best we have with what we have..

In Book ONe of Lord of the Rings, Frodo says, “I wish it need not have happened in my time,”… and Gandalf agrees. “…So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

We are called to meet the day to day world as Christ would, do bear his Passion in our Lives. Come, let us partake of food for the journey. And then do so.

*Added after more research: Since the reunion of ROCOR with the Moscow Patriarchate, some saints are “making it” onto the reunited church’s calendar. Sadly it seems as though Sts Alexei and Catherine are not on the new list – but neither are they “decommissioned” as there is no way to do that. And while we’re on the topic, St Isaac the Syrian was a member of the (non-Orthodox) Nestorian Church.

MEMORIAL TO A MONK WHO JOYFULLY DIED AND WHO NEVER JUDGED ANYONE IN HIS LIFE

This monk was lazy, careless, and lacking in his prayer life; but throughout all of his life, he did not judge anyone. While dying, he was happy. When the brethren asked him how is it that with so many sins, you die happy? He replied, “I now see angels who are showing me a letter with my numerous sins. I said to them, Our Lord said: `stop judging and you will not be judged’ (St. Luke 6:37). I have never judged anyone, and I hope in the mercy of God that He will not judge me.” And the angels tore up the paper. Upon hearing this, the monks were astonished and learned from it.

May he pray for us!

Therefore we also, 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 unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Give a listen to the CBC’s Tapestry for last week.

I wrote Mary Hines, at CBC’s Tapestry, an email after hearing that broadcast…

I’m a cynic: I admit it. The Olympics – like most sporting events – are
too commercial and too heavily involved in making money on the backs of
“our youth” for me to care. I’ve seen about 30 minutes total of Olympic
TV in the last 15 or 20 years. (It helps that I don’t own a TV, of
course.)

But your podcast had me choked up as I walked to work this AM.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition of Christianity there is a thing
called the “podvig” or “ascesis”. Among Arab Christians the same word
is “Jihad”. It is the struggle to, as St Paul says, “work out our
salvation in fear and trembling” and to “run the race set before us”.

The more I listened to your discussion with Phil Cousineau the more I
let go of my cynicism and saw the Olympics as an icon of spiritual
struggle. In the Eastern world spiritual is *not* in opposition to the
physical – we are all one person – spirit, body and mind. All three
need to be involved in that struggle. And there I had a learning about
my own body, my own ascesis.

This is Lent for Christians, East and West. We tend to make it petty by
giving up chocolate or the internet. But it is a time to struggle. By
the time you got to Derek Redmond my eyes were more than moist. Hearing
the crowds cheering him on, I thought again of the scriptures telling us
we are surrounded in our struggles by “a great cloud of witnesses”
cheering us on. None of us are alone.

Thanks, Mary, for reminding me it’s not just my food intake that is the
issue – but actually *working* on my body, my process.

Oddly enough, I wrote it before I knew what the Bible Readings were for today.

Watch Derek Redmond cross the line.

Run the Race Set before us.
The Saints Cheer us on.

The Sunday of Orthodoxy: when we celebrate these glorious icons and the presence of the Saints around us. Looking down on us – cheering us on.

Watch Derek again. Look at the crowd.

That’s us.

That’s them.

And Derek’s Dad? Who, in your life, is Derek’s Dad?

I received an email and a phone call this weekend from two friends and Brothers on this race. They didn’t know why the Spirit was having them call… but they reached out. I’m feeling a bit better now.

Let us run the race before us: we’re not alone.

• Revised Common Lectionary:
  
  • 1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13
  • Ezekiel 17:22-24
  • 2 Corinthians 5:6-17
  • Mark 4:26-34
• Eastern Rite:
  
  • Romans 2:10-16
  • Matthew 4:18-23

When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves… God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.

‘PRAZDZNIKOM! A Blessed Feast to you! (I wish we had a word in English that did duty for “S’prazdznikom!”) Today is the feast of All Saints of America as well as the Patronal Festival of the Mission here in Buffalo! We’re Dancing today in honour of the holy men and women of all ages and times who have followed the Holy One in glory on this continent and South America as well.

Some have openly declared their faith as Christians, others have never done so: but we say the light of Christ burns in them and draws them to the Holy One – and draws us, too, to that same Holy One through them.

In today’s (ER) reading, Paul is making it clear to his Jewish readers that it’s possible for people outside the visible community of God to be followers of God. And visibly so! It is Paul saying what my friend, Ana,says often: “Sometimes the Pagans are better Christians than the Christians.”

Today’s feast is a way to acknowledge these people as clearly and as powerfully as we can:

Come, let us praise the saints of all the Americas,
holy hierarchs, venerable monastics and glorious martyrs,
pious men, women and children, both known and unknown!
Through their words and deeds, in various walks of life,
by the grace of the Spirit they achieved true holiness.
Now as they stand in the presence of Christ Who glorified them,
they pray for us, who celebrate their memory with love.

Come, let us assemble today
and glorify the luminaries of all the American lands,
the glorious martyrs and holy bishops who confirmed our faith,
the righteous dwellers in the wilderness and guides of the spiritual life!
Let us cry out to them in joy:
All Saints of the Americas known and unknown, pray to God for us!

Known and Unknown… the Eastern tradition today (as the Western one did, until recently) has as strong, vital tradition of local commemoration. Someone whose holiness is recognised in their life, at least among local people, or whose holiness in death is seen by all those around him or her. Although they are not named “saints” by any larger body, the local folks invoke them as such, telling stories to their children about the holiness of Fr X, the local pastor, or the miracles of Mrs Y a wise prophetess who could pray and God would hear and answer her prayers. Only recently – especially in the west, but also in the eastern communities, and only among a certain class of intellectual folk (and I include myself there) have we tried to assure ourselves of the “purity” of our faith by banishing those people we think might be “heretics” or “not really good enough.” When we see people praying to Holy Man X, we scratch our head and try to correct their missteps. We want to keep things “right” and “pure”.

As the brightest sun,
as the brilliance of the Morning Star,
the precious feast of the saints of North and South America has dawned for us,
to illumine us and to set our hearts on fire,
to imitate their godly lives,
and to follow their example of zeal for God.

Come, let us assemble today
and let us praise the elect of all America!
Having fought the good fight, you have persevered in the faith,
receiving your crowns of victory from God.
Beseech Him to deliver from every calamity and sorrow
all who keep your holy memory in faith and in love!

One of the Patrons of our Community is Our Lady of Guadeloupe. She’s called “The Queen of the Americas” by the Byzantine Catholics and her feast day is on 12 December. If you know her story, you probably understand the punchline to this Joke: You’ve seem images of her, I’m sure, flowing in the clouds on the back of an angel. The type of the image is exactly that of most other Mexican devotional images of a certain period. It looks rather like an icon of the period. And there are doubters from within the Church from from as early as 1556, 25 years after the reported miracle: when the participants were still living. The natives (easily misled, of course) are made to “believe that the image painted by Marcos the Indian is in any way miraculous.” And so, of course, when Secretary of State Clinton visited Mexico this year, she is said to have asked, “Who painted it?” But this devotion continues to grow – and prayers are answered and miracles happen. Who cares if the apparition happened exactly as told; or even if the icon is, as some believe, simply a way to get the local Aztec natives to see the Virgin (and hence, her son) as the manifestation of the local idea of Holy? In answer to that question we sing her hymn every Sunday.

My own patron Saint, Raphael Hawaweeny, was glorified 100 years after his death by two local synods of Orthodoxy. But he had been prayed to, with icons of him even in churches, for most of the last century, so evident was his holiness to all who knew him or knew of him and his work.

And all communions of Christianity are filled with examples of Holy Men and Women we might wish had shut up sooner – such as John Chrysostom or Martin Luther before they gave voice to the Antisemitism of their cultures or Martin Luther King before he had extra-marital affairs, or Raphael of Brooklyn before he allowed his faithful to pray with Episcopalians and then withdrew the permission in a most astonishing manner… maybe we need to admit that the “real” Saints are not perfect. Neither should we expect such perfection of anyone save Jesus.

We want our faith to make sense, some times: to be filled with logical beauty and sensible perfection. In fact, in this fallen world, God makes a bigger mess than that, and expects us to laugh. Have you heard the beauty of a Russian Choir singing the Tchaikovsky Liturgy? Most churches throughout history have been blessed by something rather smaller and messier. So it is with our saints.

The earth rejoices and the heavens are glad,
O venerable Saints of America,
praising your labors and lives, your spiritual fortitude and purity of heart.
By driving away a multitude of demons
and enlightening many people with the light of the Faith,
you have confirmed our land.

So the question stands, as the prophet says, Who are these like stars appearing? They are around us in many ways and shapes and forms. The man at the deli counter, the woman at the bar, the saint at the laundromat or the wise man on the Subway.

One night, walking to a lecture by Matthew Fox, I met an Angel. And once, drunk and walking home at 2 AM, I gave my chain to a woman who said – her hands overflowing with my donation – that she was the Virgin Mary.

What are we to do? We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Some of them gave their lives for a great good, a self sacrifice for their fellow people. For some – St Raphael – the holiness may shine out in entirely predictable ways. For others, we may be surprised to imagine who we might see at the final banquet. Even though they may have rejected God in their time, we can see God in their lives.

So a blessed feast! S’prazdznikom! May they all pray for us – the ones we expect and the ones we do not expect, the ones we imagine and the ones we reject. The ones who comfort us and the ones who challenge us, the ones who confirm our faith and the ones who rejected it out of hand – but still managed to make some part of the Kingdom visible. God knows the secrets of their hearts in Jesus Christ. It’s all good.

Rejoice, O mountains of Pennsylvania and Peru
leap for joy, O waters of the Great Lakes and the Amazon;
rise up, O fertile plains of Canada and deserts of Mexico;
for the elect of Christ who dwelt in you are glorified,
men and women who left their homes for a new land!
With faith, hope and patience as their armor,
they courageously fought the good fight.
Comforted by the beauty of Christ’s Holy Faith,
they labored in mines and mills, they tilled the land,
they braved the challenges of the great cities,
enduring many hardships and sufferings.
Never failing to worship God in spirit and truth
and unyielding in devotion to His most pure Mother,
they erected many temples to His glory.
Come, O assembly of the Faithful,
and with love let us praise the holy women, men and children,
those known to us and those known only to God,
and let us cry out to them:
Rejoice, All Saints of the Americas and pray to God for us!

As the bountiful harvest of Your sowing of salvation,
the lands of North and South America offer to You, O Lord, all the saints
who have shone forth in them.
By their prayers keep the Church and our land in abiding peace
through the Theotokos, O most Merciful One!

Kontakion (Tone 3)

Today the choir of Saints who were pleasing to God in the lands
of North and South America
stands before us in the Church and invisibly prays to God for us.
With them the Angels glorify Him,
and all the Saints of the Church of Christ keep festival with them;
and together they all pray for us to the Pre-eternal God.

Who are these “All Saints of America”?

As Anglicans and part of the Independent Sacramentalist community, we recognise the presence of sanctity beyond our own tradition. The Saints of America show forth a wide spectrum of God’s work in the new world, under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadeloupe, the Queen of the Americas

From the Eastern churches, this list includes

Innocent of Alaska,
Raphael of Brooklyn,
Tikhon of Moscow,
Arseny,
Nicholas,
John of San Francisco,
Juvenaly,
Jacob of Alaska,
Alexis of Wilkes-Barre,
John of Chicago,
Herman of Alaska,
Peter the Aleut,
Alexander Hotovitsky,
Seraphim of Platina.

For the Roman ecclesial communities, this list includes:
Juan Diego
Junipero Serra
Elizabeth Ann Seton
Frances Cabrini
John Neumann
Oscar Romero
René Goupil
Théodore Guérin
Katharine Drexel
Rose Philippine Duchesne
Isaac Jogues
Kateri Tekakwitha

And many many others:

It will come as a surprise to many, if not most, to learn that there are at least some 137 men and women who have lived in North or South America who have been beatified or canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Sixty of them were canonized and 77 beatified. Most of these, 50 of them, came from Mexico and another 33 were from Brazil. The United States and Canada together can claim eight North American Martyrs. Individually Canada boasts another twelve saints or blesseds and the United States, nine. Seven were from Peru; three each were from Argentina and Chile; and one each from Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. All except eight of these were beatified or canonized within the last one hundred years or so. Of these, Pope John Paul II was responsible for the canonization of 28 and the beatification of 32 others.

From the Anglican communities, the list of saints grows to include:

Samuel Seabury,
The Wesley Brothers,
Charles Henry Brent,
The Martyrs of Memphis,
Harriet Bedell,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Amelia Bloomer,
Sojourner Truth,
Harriet Ross Tubman,
Thomas Bray,
James Lloyd Breck,
Phillips Brooks,
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper,
Alexander Crummell,
Jonathan Myrick Daniels,
James de Koven,
William Porcher DuBose,
Julia Emery,
King Kamehameha IV and his wife Emma,
Enmegahbowh,
John Hobart,
James Holly,
James Huntington,
William Huntington,
Absolom Jones,
Frances Joseph-Gaudet,
Jackson Kemper,
William A. Muhlenberg,
David P. Oakerhater,
Vida Dutton Scudder,
Thomas Gallaudet,
Henry Winter Syle,
William White,
Channing Moore Williams…

And others.

From the wider tradition, the action of God, the Sanctity of the Holy Spirit can be seen in the lives of Martin Luther King, Jr, Eleanor Roosevelt, John Muir, Dorothy Day, John Coltrane, and others who through their lives and art, their self-sacrificial love and their actions show the love of GOd to the world.

This list will keep growing.

The feast of All Saints of America is celebrated on the Second Sunday following Pentecost. The Theotokos of Guadalupe is celebrated on 12 December.

Troparion (Tone 4)

When you appeared in the New World, O Theotokos,
you fixed your image on Juan Diego’s rose laden tilma.
All the poor, hungry, and oppressed seek you, Lady of Guadalupe.
We gaze upon your miraculous icon and find hope,
crying out to your Son concealed in your womb:
Hear our plea for justice, O most merciful Lord.

Kontakion (Tone 7)

No longer shall the New World lie wounded in useless blood sacrifice,
for she who is clothed with the sun has revealed the Son to us.
O Mother of the Americas, imprint His Name upon our hearts,
just as you wove your image into the cactus cloth.
Teach your children to cry out:
O Christ God, our hope, glory to you.