Abstract
The phrase ‘communion of saints’ does not appear in the fourth-century Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which is recited today at the Eucharist. It was added to the Apostles’ Creed in the fifth century, probably from Eastern sources. In the East, it was taken to mean ‘communion in the holy things’ – that is, the bread and the wine of the Eucharist. In the West, it was taken to mean ‘the fellowship of holy persons’ – that is, ‘communion with the saints’. The two are, of course, integrally linked.
DeLorenzo sets out to ‘re-construct’ the doctrine, setting it within the wider body of Catholic teaching. He begins with a critique of modern accounts of death (Nietzsche, Heidegger) and post-mortem survival (Rilke), which fail to confront the finality of dying and to celebrate the gift of personal fulfilment in resurrection from the dead. His own theological starting point is the death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ; his anthropological point of entry to the mystery of communion a re-reading of Augustine’s Confessions, tracing the ‘memory’ of God that Augustine found deep within himself. Only when a thoroughgoing trinitarian eschatology is securely in place does he come, with the help of Dante, to ecclesiology and the saints’ ‘work of love’ as they seek to draw those who are still in via into the communion that they already share. DeLorenzo exemplifies his thesis about the ‘work of love’ with brief accounts of Thérèse of Lisieux, Teresa of Avila, Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day, all of whom were distinguished in their earthly lives by their ‘generous hearts’ and their care for others, especially the poor.
Undergirding this study, both in its Augustinianism and its rhapsodic emphasis on communion, is the work of Henri de Lubac. There are, however, problems. The first lies in a lack of clarity about who the ‘saints’ are. At times, they seem to include all the baptized, living and departed, at times just the ‘blessed dead’, at times individuals distinguished by their ‘heroic virtue’. Only in passing is there a hint that the process of canonization as an authoritative determination that a Christian now enjoys the beatific vision raises problems for DeLorenzo’s inclusive account; so with Purgatory, because he presupposes, without discussion, that the saints are those whose purgatorial journey is complete. He does not engage with the ‘cult of the saints’: Peter Brown’s classic work does not appear in the bibliography. In one sense, then, this account is attractive to non-Catholic Christians. It goes behind the medieval individualization of sainthood and the preoccupation with relics to the patristic sense of the Church as a communion in Christ. In another, it is severely limited by its preoccupation with Catholic sources – Rahner, von Balthasar, Ratzinger – and with Catholic saints. Over the west front of Westminster Abbey are statues of ten twentieth-century Christian martyrs, women and men from every part of the world and a number of Christian traditions. Two of them were Catholic: Maximilian Kolbe (who has been canonized) and Oscar Romero (who, as yet, has not). How many of the ten, I wonder, would DeLorenzo include in the ‘communion of saints’?