The Day of Saints - Day 12, Knowing Me, Knowing Who?

Mural detail - woman looking at her reflection in a mirror (in Breage Parish Church)

In their being revered, but also in their virtual anonymity, I remain puzzled by who these saints were, and who people see them as. The question bounces back to me, and to us, of course, that perpetual searching to understand who we are. It is there in what I've written about Senara (see Day 10), it is there in Thomas Merton's writing and the Abbot of Worth's comment (see Day 8), in other blog posts here too, and it is there in the daily and weekly devotions of religious people around the world, and perhaps many who wouldn't call themselves religious.

I travelled across from St Just towards the Lizard Peninsula on the last full day camping. Travelling along the coast I stopped at St Germoe's Seat (not on my list!), in St Germoe, and then at St Breage and Gunwalloe. In St Breage parish church there is stained glass with a picture of the saint given the name St Breaca. They are two names for the same person, it seems, and though the place is called one thing, the church is dedicated to the other. In Gunwalloe, the 'Church of the Storms' is dedicated to St Winwalloe. Outside stands a statue that once gave me a fright on a dark night when I turned the corner and found it confronting me. It is Winwalloe - or at least someone's idea of what he looked like. Inside the church, there was confirmation that little was known of him.

St Winwalloe - head and torsoe, Gunwalloe

Who makes saints, and what makes saints? Those who are in Christ, is the plain answer (even the Roman Catholic church doesn't make them so much as recognise them - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint#Stages_of_canonization ). For a reflective Christian, at least in my experience, feeling at all saintly is a very fleeting thing, and when I feel that way I immediately realise my own capacity for self-deception. Along with this, it is very easy to point fingers at others in the 'call yourself a Christian?' vein. Hence, and with no intended reference to ABBA or Alan Partridge, the following shorter verse:

Knowing me, Knowing you.

Think you're a saint?

How quaint!

You ain't.

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