Vigils Reading – All Benedictine Saints

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS

From the writing of Baldwin of Ford2

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I believe, O Lord, in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints. Here is my hope, here is my trust, here is my confidence, here is my security — however small it may be — which I have in the confession of my faith, in the generosity of the Holy Spirit, in the unity of the catholic Church, in the communion of the saints. If it be granted me from above to love you and to love my neighbour, then even though my own merits are poor and meager, I have a hope which is above and beyond all my merits: I am sure that through the communion of charity the merits of the saints will profit me and that the communion of the saints can make good my own imperfection and insufficiency. The prophet comforts me when he says, “I have seen an end of all perfection, but your commandment is exceeding broad.”

O charity, so broad and so extensive, how great is the house of God, how vast is the place of his possession! We need not be distressed in our heart; we need not be confined by the boundaries and limits of our insignificant righteousness. Charity extends our hope to the communion of the saints, and we can therefore share with them their merits and their rewards. But the sharing of their rewards is [reserved] for the time to come, for it is the sharing of the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Thus there are three sorts of sharing, [three forms of communion, three ways in which we have things in common]: the sharing of nature, which is associated with the sharing of sin and the sharing of wrath; then the sharing of grace; and thirdly, the sharing of glory. By the sharing of grace, the sharing of nature begins to be restored and the sharing of sin is removed, but by the sharing of glory, the sharing of nature will be fully and perfectly restored and the sharing of wrath wholly removed. It is then that God shall wipe away all the tears from the eyes of the saints. It is then that all the saints will be as one heart and one soul, and they will have all things in common when God will be all in all.

[Our hope is] that we, too, may come… to this communion and come together as one [and therefore we pray that] the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the charity of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit may be with us all always.