A Cloud of Witnesses: a message to the churches

3. Discerning the Witnesses

3.1 Discerning witnesses together entails:

• Recognition in the witness of fidelity to baptismal faith expressed in a life conformed to the death and resurrection of Christ and a willingness to continue to the end, even to death itself. The Christ we recognize in the witnesses is the Christ who has suffered rejection, humiliation, even death on a cross. Their lives both feed the Body of Christ, the Church, and draw it back to its calling.

• All baptized Christians are called to live in the Spirit and so participate in the new life in Christ. But within this communion, we recognize those witnesses who in a distinct sense become “Orators of the Spirit,” who, open to the Spirit and in the power of the Spirit, proclaim the gospel.

• These witnesses are sources of inspiration. Their lives are authentic interpretations of the Beatitudes.

• Holiness is never solely an individual matter. Witnesses are shaped in discipleship by living in a particular community of faith. By affirming together their faithfulness, we celebrate the Church that will be but is not yet.

• Witnesses offer us a foretaste of the kingdom and its justice. They possess an eschatological hope and joy, and a beauty that reflects their love of God. They point us to the fullness of the kingdom. Thus in their lives they unite us in Christ with the past, the present, and the future. The witnesses speak as members of the Body of Christ and draw us near to the mystery of this Body.

• The central act of the Eucharist is the remembering (anamnesis) of the death and resurrection of Christ in and through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the act of remembering, we are surrounded by the Cloud of Witnesses and with angels and archangels we sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” That is why we long to celebrate the Eucharist together.

3.2 One difficult issue of discernment involves how we assess the witness of those who have felt compelled to engage in acts of violence in the pursuit of justice and peace, and in consequence have suffered torture and death.
3.3 In discerning the witnesses to Christ, we recognize that some have suffered without the support of their Christian community or its leaders. Furthermore, there are those who have suffered torment and death at the hands of other Christian communities, including our own. Our pilgrimage of faith requires a willingness to recognize ourselves as victimisers as well as victims – as sinners as well as holy people united with the Son of God. Commemorating such witnesses together brings about a reconciliation of painful memories of the past and is a step on our pilgrimage to visible unity.

3.4 Thus, witnesses help us on our pilgrimage of faith. They invite us to cross over to where Christ is, to the place where violence is endured and overcome. In this way they draw us deeper together into the life of the crucified and risen Christ. As we contemplate those whose lives were committed to peace we understand better our call to be peace makers and peace builders. Every time we commemorate the lives of holy men and women who have witnessed to the faith, we are confronted with our own failures and therefore called to repentance and to a deeper conversion to Christ and to one another in Christ.