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Who are the saints?

Nov 1, 2015

The German theologian, Klaus Hemmerle (1929 - 1994), described the profile of the saints in one of his homilies in 1993 when he was the Bishop of Aachen. He spoke about anonymous saints, mostly unknown, but certainly well known in God’s eyes.

Klaus-Hemmerle

Klaus Hemmerle

“Who are the saints? They are not unreachable superhuman figures of a Christianity that wants to discourage us, mediocre Christians, and not high peaks beyond reach for people like us who had better remain at the foot and make do with what we have in the plains. The saints are the small ones, really small, like those that Jesus proclaimed blessed in his Sermon on the Mount: the poor, afflicted, the meek those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers and those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. They are men and women who place themselves and their own fate in God’s hands – so that these are free to make their fate a blessing for the world. They live in the presence of God and they live for us – and we can live with them. Their example is the past that tows us onward. Their life before God is the present that embraces us in a communion which death cannot delimit, and their beatitude is the future that invites us to move forward and instills us with courage.” Klaus Hemmerle, La luce dentro le cose (The Light in all things), Città Nuova Ed. 1998, p. 339

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