The Experience of the Saints

(Icon of St. Simeon the God-Receiver)

“The saints did not fear death. Some of them died prematurely, at a young age, almost consumed by an impatient love for God and also, I would dare to say, on the part of God. Others almost provoked it— but without arrogance because of the martyrial urgency of bearing witness to Christ: His Life and His Truth.

Some desired it in a mystical impetus of the heart that drove them to pray that the Bridegroom Christ might hasten His coming. Some awaited and experienced it with extreme suffering, but because they were called by love to relive the dramatic hours of Good Friday.

Some almost ‘sought’ it in the vehemence of consuming themselves entirely in ‘works and works’ of charity and mission. Others tasted it in old age, ‘full of days’, happily weary from their lifelong labors in the vineyard of the Lord.

We can say this procession of Christian saints who went to their deaths in peace was opened—when Jesus was still just a few days old—by the elderly Saint Simeon, who prayed to be allowed to depart in peace after his arms had been able to clasp the holy Child and his eyes had finally ‘seen salvation’.

This is what Christian hope is: going to meet death with the joyful assurance of embracing Life, after having the chance on earth to contemplate the Seed of Salvation.”

~Antonio Sicari