A Pillar in the Heart of Our School: Saint Helen: What if you win?

Last updated on: August 23, 2016 at 8:31 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

A Pillar in the Heart of Our School: Saint Helen: What if you win? 2016-08-23T08:23:46-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Saint_Helen_(19th_c_opt Losing is easier than winning. If you win, then you have the responsibility to govern.

Whenever I hear that we should forgo “worldly politics” I wonder what such people would have advised young Helen to do. What if you become convinced that Jesus is Lord and are the wife of one emperor and the mother of another?

Should you resign?

What if the Empire is killing Christians? Should you try to save their lives?

If you do, then have you “played politics?”

Imagine a woman born to the purple who did the best she knew with her power, but then became the subject of thousands of years of criticism, because of course if you do something, you make mistakes. Helen, and her son Constantine, have become the devils in stories (mostly ahistorical) told by conspiracy theorists on the right and the left.

She encouraged her son to stop persecuting Christians, he did, and favored his mother’s religion. By his death, Constantine was baptized into the Church.

What else could she do? She could travel to Palestine and look for evidence of the life of Jesus, because that would be glorious! When she found that evidence she was criticized as a dupe or a grifter, but she was motivated to create great beauty. Not only did fewer people die as a result of her love of Jesus, but great art was made, profound philosophy and theology was written, and Roman civilization was sustained.

She made political errors as did her son.

But she stands in our new school (The Saint Constantine School) as a pillar in the heart of our school, because she got the big thing right: Christianity could save Rome from destruction. She helped her son to see this basic truth and the Empire gained one thousand years. As a result, a Renaissance would come to the West with the texts she helped to save. As a result, there were great walls built that kept the West free from conquest.

Christians witnessed to the truth of Jesus for three hundred years and finally won. Winning was hard, because we are commanded to save civilization and we did. We made mistakes. Sometimes we confused Imperial power with the work of the Nazarene, but not always. There were always simple monks and gentle pastors who made the case that Empires could fall, but the church that is built of love can never die.

We live in tough times and Christian values seem to be “losing.” Don’t be afraid, because we are one Helen from victory. This will not produce paradise, victory is more complicated than defeat, but it will save lives, produce beauty, and redeem culture. Some schools and colleges exist to “win the culture.”

They are Saint Helen without her humility.

Some schools just want to preach the truth without any power.

They are Saint Helen without the status God gave her.

Helen was herself as God made her to be: an Empress and a Christian. She did her best and we are to honor her: the winner who did her best and so saved her civilization.

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