the holy ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, and the resurrection of the body: st. venantius

venantius is one of my favourite kinds of saints.  his legend starts, "venantius is said to have been a martyr at camerino during the third century, but nothing whatsoever is know for certain about him."  yet he remains on the calendar, being called to mind every year, with a proper hymn for both matins and vespers, even if neither has yet made it to youtube, and this collect:

"o god, who has consecrated this day with the triumph of thy blessed martyr venantius:  mercifully hear the prayers of thy people; and grant that we who venerate his righteousness, may imitate the constance of his faith in thee."

now, you might wonder--i hope you wonder--why such as venantius would be one of my favourites.  first, i don't need to know anything about him to enjoy the benefits of his life.  he is one of the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before without whom i might not be at all.  in that sense, he resembles, for instance, my welsh ancestors who sometime left wales and went to michigan--i imagine much like one of the sons let off from the mines in how green was my valley, or one of the englishmen in my mother's family who, probably to pay off debts, left for georgia.  the opportunities i have today are the result of the consance of the faith of venantius and of them.

but also he is one of my favourites because of s. john's image of the prayers of the saints around the throne, rising like golden bowls of incense, longing for their number to be complete.  venantius is one of their number.  and, he prays for me.  by that i don' mean so much that he intercedes for me but that he with the others who have finished the race pray as it were in my place all of those times when i am lax or sleepy or forgetful or just lazy.

but perhaps most importantly, venantius and the others in his great cloud--do we get the idea of saints in clouds from the book of hebrews--are truly witnesses.  if the son is the witness to the father, and the holy ghost is the witness to the son, it is the church in her fullness who is the witness to the holy ghost.  the sequence of the creed, which i borrowed as a title for this little essay, is i think very important. the resurrection of the body is only possible because of the forgivenessof sins (love does indeed win), and the forgiveness of sins only happens within the communion of saints, which is the product of the holy catholic church, which is filled with the holy ghost.

i don't need to know much about venantius to rejoice in his triumph, but i can rest in the assurance that his triumph ultimately benefits us all.  thanks be to god.