Word: sainte
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...great religions of the East, Hinduism and Buddhism, have never swung away from mysticism as the pinnacle of holiness, though they also value deeds of compassion. Traditional Islamic belief views the saint or wali (friend of God) as a person with a foot in both worlds-one whose special communion with Allah coincides with his excellence in good works. As for Christianity's own rich tradition of monastic mysticism, which goes back to the fabled desert anchorites of Egypt, it seems to be undergoing a revival there and elsewhere...
Western Christians often mention Brother Roger Schutz, founder of France's Protestant monastery of Taize (TIME, April 29, 1974), as a saint. Brother Roger's worldwide Taize youth groups are out to change the world, but what he offers at Taize -and to them-is essentially a shared life based deeply on prayer. "We should not pray for any useful end," Brother Roger has written, "but in order to create a community of free men with Christ...
...Saint. The word is heavy with meanings, not all of them congenial to modern man. The original Latin from which it derives, sanctus, means holy, and all the definitions since have revolved around just whom or what people consider holy. To many, saint is a medieval word, redolent of incense, conjuring up halos and glowing, distant images of spiritual glory in some great cathedral's stained-glass windows. To others, the word is still useful...
Somewhere between the two is the vision of the contemporary saint as a person of persistently heroic virtue and courage whose life is a model for others -a Mother Teresa, perhaps, or a Mahatma Gandhi. "A saint is someone by whom one lives," says the Rev. John Crocker, Episcopal chaplain at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "someone who for us is a revelation of what life is all about...
...Roman Catholic Church, the only saint is a dead saint. Indeed, the very process of formal canonization was designed to determine who among the departed were certainly with God in heaven, and therefore could safely be asked to intercede for divine favors...