A saint on our doorstep

One of the odd realities a Protestant is faced with upon entering the Orthodox Church is the role of saints in church life and piety. Prayers are offered to saints quite frequently and encouraged of the faithful. The practice cannot be summarily dismissed as a flourish of theological decadence, as many Protestants (including myself once upon a time) are inclined to do. The Church has a theology of the saints that proclaims they are not only alive in Christ, but that they are spectators of life on earth and can be called upon for their prayers in the same way that we call upon our living friends and family for theirs. 

***Here one must differentiate between intercession and mediation. Christians unaccustomed to the practice of praying to saints tend to confuse the two. The Orthodox Church confesses one salvific Mediator between God and Man, the "Theanthropos", or God-Man, Jesus Christ.***

When my family were received at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Dallas on April 4, 2015, we were each given "new names" which we would henceforth go by in the context of our life in the church. These new names typically draw from canonized saints of the Church, and are in the spirit of Saul having received the new name "Paul" after his conversion. It's also meant to bequeath new communicants with a personalized model of the faith to aspire to. In my oldest daughter's case, the name she took was that of Susanna, one of the myrrh-bearing women mentioned in Luke 8.

It bears noting that at least for this former Protestant, embracing the living reality of the saints and their connection to the "Church Militant" is an ongoing project. It's not so easy as just ascending to a new idea and then moving on. But once in a while, something unexpected will happen that causes my wife and I to deepen our embrace of that reality.

Enter icons.

Another marquee practice in Orthodox piety is to possess "icons", paintings of saints or events from Christian history as visual objects to aid in commemorating people and events that are meaningful to the faith. Recently I ordered a new icon of St. Susanna for my oldest daughter's bedroom. When the icon arrived at our door, I eagerly opened the package, only to find an icon I hadn't ordered. Adding to my consternation was the fact that the icon's inscription was in Greek, so there was no ready way of knowing who the wrong icon was depicting. I went to the website I ordered it from and began the tedious slog of combing through their inventory until I found the mystery saint. On the second to last page, I finally found it: St. Veronica.

If that name doesn't mean anything to you, it didn't to me either. Nor to my wife. Veronica is the name the Church's tradition has ascribed to the woman with "an issue of blood" in the Gospels. As I looked up St. Veronica's story and relayed it to my wife, I noticed she was looking very pensive. She then enlightened me that only the night before, she'd been reading in the Gospels about Veronica, not knowing her name. "I already knew the story, but I was freshly struck by her depth of faith in straining through the crowd for only a chance to touch Christ's robe. Without knowing her name, I contemplated her life and asked God to give me the same faith."

The very next day, Veronica was on our doorstep.

If you're a cynical person, you can dismiss it as coincidence. If you're uncomfortable with the idea of a living, breathing, seeing and hearing Church Triumphant, you can attribute it to having merely been a divine gesture (which would be no small thing!). But we are obliged as Orthodox Christians to attest to the living activity of the saints. Rather than confined to picture frames and divine memory as a kind of Slughorn collector's item, we choose to believe Veronica truly came to us. For what ultimate purpose, we don't know yet. The iconographer told us to keep the incorrect icon and sent us the correct one. We've now given Veronica a place of prominence in our home to remind us of her remarkable entrance into our lives, and in the hopes that her faith will continue to lift us toward Christ.

St. Veronica, pray for us!