Saints of the Avalonian Catholic Church

Saints of the Avalonian Catholic Church

*** Philosophy of the Holy Ones ***

There is a great misconception in the minds of many concerning saints, their cults and their proper veneration. We need firstly to keep in mind that "all have sinned." Indeed, the best holy children of the Light have been the first to admit that they are miserable sinners in the sight of an angry God.

Many greatly-revered holy folk were actually guilty of some pretty terrible atrocities. One good example is St. Columkille, also known as Columba. When he was younger, he copied someone's book. The owner learned of this and demanded that Columkille return the copy. When he refused, he was sued and judgement entered against him in a very early copyright case. When he still stubbornly refused to turn over the book, he started a full-blown war, in which many of his family members were killed and which they lost. As a result, his family banished him.

Later, when he arrived at Iona, his disciples found that they were totally unable to get the walls of their church to stand. They kept mysteriously falling down. Finally, Columkille in frustration turned to a guy named Oran, who was from the area, and asked him what the problem was. Oran said, not hard to answer, the local spirits were upset with what they were doing. Oran said that they should bury him for three days, he'd talk to them and report back when they dug him out. This was done. However, Oran said something very disturbing to Columkille: at least Columkille was disturbed! He told him: "Things are not the way you think they are." Columkille was so scared and mad by this that he ordered Oran to be buried again, this time permanently. For this reason, Avalonian Catholics revere Oran for his fearless stand for truth, especially since he knew Columkille's mind.

Likewise, many men were canonized by the Roman Catholic Church and some Eastern recensions just for doing a good job of destroying their competitors, by any means necessary. Some were not very good, and this is hardly something we should revere someone for.

Jesus was far more concerned with people's actions than with their philosophy. When the Roman centurian asked him to heal his daughter, he didn't enquire about his theology. He helped the Samaritan woman and made a Samaritan the hero of one of his most-revered parables, amazing considering the extreme hatred of most "mainstream" Jews for these pagans. When he called many of the former children of the devil, he said that they would commit the sins of their father. He said that if one could not love a person they could see, it was inconceivable that they could love God because they couldn't see Him.

Jesus' position makes sense for several very good reasons. Someone can easily be a hypocrite. Religious convictions, held in faith without proper scientific and verifiable proof, easily leads to armed conflict between holders of opposing religious faiths. Also, such blind allegiance can also be used to enslave the average joe to serve irreverend ministers of greed.

One extremely fascinating conclusion of this line of reasoning is that people who are or were heterodoxical or even heretical can be canonized due to their exceptional service to humanity. One example would be Michel de Notredame, better known as Nostradamus, who so selflessly gave of his time and talents to heal innumerable numbers suffering from the Black Death. As one argument against detractors of this approach, we can point out that, in the face of overwhelming odds, he was never so afflicted, even though he attended so many who were. Another excellent example would be the wisdom of canonizing John Paul I of the Roman Catholic Church, who suffered martyrdom for taking actions against evil wrongdoers, but the utter folly of canonizing his wicked successor, John Paul II.

To read more about individual holy ones revered by the Avalonian Catholic Church, simply follow the link below labeled "Next". And remember, it's nice to be important, but it's much more important to be nice.