Mixed up Saints with Broken Halos: Reflection for All Saints Day



Can you understand the pictures in this photo of a stained glass window?

 The image is a small part of the enormous window above the west door in Winchester Cathedral (UK). Seeing the whole window does not help to interpret the pictures. The window contains a jumble of irregularly shaped coloured glass. You might be able to pick out the odd face or hand and if you know what you are looking for, a lot of broken golden halos.

 The west window is not the original. The original medieval window had Bible stories and images of saints. During the English civil war, on 12 December 1642, Cromwell's soldiers destroyed many things in the cathedral, leaving it without glass in the windows and with holes in the roof. If you want to know what happened, do take a look at the dramatic story from Winchester Cathedral's website, as written for schoolchildren here in 'The story of the Great West Window'.

 To cut a long story short, horrified Winchester residents collected and secretly stored broken fragments of stained glass until the restoration of the monarchy 18 years later. It was impossible to recreate the original design of the west window, so fragments were leaded in to create a colourful collage. What you can see today is a collection of mixed up saints with broken halos.

 Saints are not perfect people. Saints, past and present, have flaws, cracks. They are broken in some way. When St Paul wrote to young churches he addressed the Christians as 'saints' even though he knew how flawed the people he wrote to were. They were saints-in-the-making, works of God's grace in progress, messed up sinners, but called to be saints.

 So when I think of that west window in Winchester Cathedral, I think of how those broken saints with broken halos are a picture of the church on earth. I think of how all of we Christians are broken and messed up together, part of the whole 'Communion of Saints'. All of us 'called to be saints' fail in so many ways. We are broken by the flaws within ourselves and others. We are broken by grief. We are broken by abuse, by the unkindness of others. We are broken by sickness. We are broken by situations over which we have no control. We are broken by war, by climate change, by our wrong choices. We are broken by fears for the future. A saint could be defined as someone who knows the brokenness of this world and responds by turning to Christ, not to escape the world, but to find the true Light in the world.

 Nearly 470 years after its recreation, if you stand inside Winchester Cathedral on a sunny afternoon, you will see beautiful coloured light streaming in through its great west window. The light shines through those mixed-up broken saints with broken halos. I believe that God wants us to allow him to recreate the maker's original design in humanity. God  is the ultimate Creator, who does transform brokenness into wholeness. God can pick up the broken shards of our lives and communities, to create something beautiful through which Light can shine. 

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