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30 Anne Mouron of Unknowing) and the other one advocating their presence (Hilton’s Scale). 21 However, in The Manere of Good Lyvyng and The Desert of Religion the situation is perhaps best looked at in a different way. For if The Manere of Good Lyvyng has no visual illustrations, it has a number of verbal images taken from patristic and scriptural sources rather than from everyday life. These are images that separate readers from the world and focus their attention on God. On the other hand, The Desert of Religion, in all three manuscripts, offers the reader a multiplicity of images; but these are not taken from everyday life either. These images also isolate the hermit-reader from the world and, in MS Add. 37049, offer opportunities for devotion and ultimately a spiritual community to which to belong. Possibly the question, in both The Manere of Good Lyvyng and The Desert of Religion, is not so much the presence or absence of images, verbal or material, but rather one of control. By controlling the nun’s or hermit’s environment, the text facilitates what The Desert calls the ‘austerity of strict living’ (l.32), for as the poem’s Prologue indicates by referring to another verbal image, which goes back at least to Cassian, ‘For when man enters the religious life through devotion, he is as a man who should go into the field to fight against the Fiend’ (ll.12–15). Anne Elisabeth Mouron obtained her DPhil. from Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1996. She teaches medieval literature at Wycliffe Hall and is a member of Regent’s Park College. She has published various articles on late medieval devotional texts, has co-edited with Christiania Whitehead and Denis Renevey the Doctrine of the Hert (2010), and is the editor of the The Manere of Good Lyvyng (2014). 21 Alistair Minnis, ‘Affection and Imagination in The Cloud of Unknowing and Hilton’s Scale of Perfection’, Traditio, 39 (1983), 323–366, at 324. Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton and the Cloud author are known as three of the Middle English mystics. The other two are Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. For an assessment of all five, see Marion Glasscoe, English Medieval Mystics: Games of Faith (London: Longman, 1993).
SAINTS, THE CHURCH AND PERSONAL PRAYER Robert E. Doud T HE JOB OF THE CHURCH is to help people become saints. 1 One of the ancient names for the Church is the Communion of Saints. Another very ancient, indeed biblical, name for the Church is the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is also what we receive in the sacrament of the Holy Communion: it is the communion, the community and the common unity of all Christians, local and worldwide. The Communion of Saints is the Church, and the Body of Christ is the Church. The job of each member of the Church is to help the other members to become saints, while joining them in the same process. All Christians are, in some sense, saints. 2 We have all been cleansed in the waters of baptism; we have all thereby washed our robes in the blood of the Lamb, as the biblical Book of Revelation says (7:14). We, as members of the Church, are God’s Holy People. But we are still sinners. No one of us on earth will be perfect until we die and go to heaven. In this world, we are all saints and sinners at the same time. Many Christians, especially Roman Catholics, also talk about saints as those almost perfect people who have led lives of extraordinary holiness in this world, and who have been canonized as saints by a Church. 3 Some were considered to be saints long before there was a canonization process. 4 Thus, we have Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, Stephen and Agatha. We 1 Karl Rahner, ‘Veneration of Saints’, Theological Dictionary (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), 479: ‘The magisterium speaks of the significance of the saints when describing the Church as a sign among the nations and basing her credibility squarely on her holiness …’. 2 Elizabeth A. Johnson, ‘Saints and Mary’, Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, edited by Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin, volume 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 156. Johnson quotes Lumen gentium thus: ‘in various ways and degrees we all partake in the same love for God and neighbor, and all sing the same hymn of glory to our God’. 3 The Roman Catholic Church has a formal procedure for canonization; the Orthodox and Anglican Churches also recognise and celebrate saints, and add feast-days for new ones. 4 Kenneth L. Woodward, Making Saints: How the Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes a Saint, Who Doesn’t, and Why (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 50–52. The Way, 55/1 (January 2016), 31–44
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SAINTS, THE CHURCH<br />
AND PERSONAL PRAYER<br />
Robert E. Doud<br />
T<br />
HE JOB OF THE CHURCH is to help people become saints. 1 One of<br />
the ancient names for the Church is the Communion of Saints.<br />
Another very ancient, indeed biblical, name for the Church is the Body<br />
of Christ. The Body of Christ is also what we receive in the sacrament<br />
of the Holy Communion: it is the communion, the community and the<br />
common unity of all Christians, local and worldwide. The Communion<br />
of Saints is the Church, and the Body of Christ is the Church. The job<br />
of each member of the Church is to help the other members to become<br />
saints, while joining them in the same process.<br />
All Christians are, in some sense, saints. 2 We have all been cleansed<br />
in the waters of baptism; we have all thereby washed our robes in the<br />
blood of the Lamb, as the biblical Book of Revelation says (7:14). We, as<br />
members of the Church, are God’s Holy People. But we are still sinners.<br />
No one of us on earth will be perfect until we die and go to heaven. In<br />
this world, we are all saints and sinners at the same time.<br />
Many Christians, especially Roman Catholics, also talk about saints as<br />
those almost perfect people who have led lives of extraordinary holiness<br />
in this world, and who have been canonized as saints by a Church. 3 Some<br />
were considered to be saints long before there was a canonization process. 4<br />
Thus, we have Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, Stephen and Agatha. We<br />
1<br />
Karl Rahner, ‘Veneration of Saints’, Theological Dictionary (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965),<br />
479: ‘The magisterium speaks of the significance of the saints when describing the Church as a sign<br />
among the nations and basing her credibility squarely on her holiness …’.<br />
2<br />
Elizabeth A. Johnson, ‘Saints and Mary’, Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, edited by<br />
Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin, volume 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 156. Johnson<br />
quotes Lumen gentium thus: ‘in various ways and degrees we all partake in the same love for God and<br />
neighbor, and all sing the same hymn of glory to our God’.<br />
3<br />
The Roman Catholic Church has a formal procedure for canonization; the Orthodox and Anglican<br />
Churches also recognise and celebrate saints, and add feast-days for new ones.<br />
4<br />
Kenneth L. Woodward, Making Saints: How the Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes a Saint,<br />
Who Doesn’t, and Why (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 50–52.<br />
The Way, 55/1 (January 2016), 31–44
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