Tapestries hanging in the Los Angeles, CA Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
In the Letter to the Hebrews we read about "so great a cloud of witnesses...." These are the saints and ordinary people blended together as a support system for all those who spend time in prayer in the Cathedral. All the depicted individuals are facing in one direction --- toward the sanctuary and its crucifix and tabernacle, toward Jesus Christ, "the leader and perfecter of faith."
Perhaps through our reading a book of the lives of saints or more contemporary biographies of noble men and women, we can achieve for ourselves a community, a "cloud," of sisters and brothers who have born the struggles of life, who have met the challenges of temptations, sometimes failing but ultimately winning. These are the men, women and young people who faced the challenges their times put before them. These are the models we want for ourselves and our young people to know and emulate.
Morality and ethics --- these are the components of a system of values. These are the backbone of personal character that are nourished by the example of saints and sinners alike. For example, the apostles, a tent maker named Paul, a monk named Benedict, another monk named Francis, a mystic like Theresa, a theologian named Dominic, a spiritual former like Ignatius, contemporaries like Florence Nightingale, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, St. Maximilian Kolble, St. Gertrude Stein, Clara Barton, Damian of Molokai, Mother Theresa, Juan Diego, and a Martin Luther King, Jr.
These and may more people that each of us have come to know, these are the models who struggled valiantly against evil in their lives and ran the race successfully. Today it might be a teacher who struggles, dividing his/her time between students and family; parents who carry extraordinary challenges raising children as parents ought; those enduring nobly serious or terminal illnesses; These are some of the models, that cloud of modern day witnesses, who can support each of us --- yes they can if we but take the time, but make the time to let the quality of their lives be a support and inspiration to us as we run the race.
