Sts. Adam and Eve – A Christmas Feast

Recently, I was listening to our local Catholic radio station when someone called in with a question about Adam and Eve. The caller asked if the Church knew whether Adam and Eve were in heaven or in hell. The host indicated that our first parents’ fate was unknown, but he said he personally believed that they were “probably” in heaven.

It was a disappointing, but not entirely unexpected answer. As the radio host’s response indicates, our first parents aren’t the best-known saints. But their presence in heaven is more than just conjecture. Adam and Eve are canonized saints – which means that their salvation is a declared truth of the Catholic Church. Historically, Adam and Eve are the patron saints of gardeners and tailors, but they can also be considered patron saints of the souls in Purgatory.

In fact, Sts. Adam and Eve have been on the calendar of saints since there was a calendar of feasts to celebrate. In the medieval Church, the sainthood of Adam and Eve was common knowledge. They were popular, well-beloved intercessors. Their statues were common in medieval churches and Catholics felt a deep love for them as our first parents and the first to enter Heaven after Christ opened its doors to humanity.

But some time after Martin Luther’s break with the Church, Adam and Eve started to fall out of favor. Instead of looking to Adam and Eve as inspirations in how to live as repentant sinners, we started treating them with resentment and judgment. Many modern Christians tend to assume that our first parents were pretty pathetic specimens, and that any one of us could have done better. But we do them – and ourselves – huge disservice when we disrespect our first parents this way.

The Saints of Christmas Eve

We celebrate the feast of Adam and Eve on Christmas Eve – the night when the whole earth rejoices in its Savior. It is also the night in which the most souls are released from Purgatory. On Christmas Eve, we remember in a special, celebratory way the abundant mercy of God. In fact, many of the old Christmas tales involve stories of desperate spirits, haunting the living on Christmas Eve in order to beg for prayers.

Adam and Eve are ideal companions on this night of intercession and mercy. The Church teaches that they lived a life of sorrow and repentance after their fall. When they died, the first couple awaited the coming of Christ in the Limbo of the Just (later referred to as the Bosom of Abraham). When Christ died on the cross, He descended into this “hell” – which is different than the eternal hell of the damned – and preached the Good News to those who had awaited His coming.

These Holy Souls followed Christ into heaven, the first saints of the Church. Among them were Adam and Eve, Seth, Noah, and of course, Abraham – our father in faith.

Having waited thousands of years for Christ to come and save us all, Adam and Eve are ideal intercessors on this Eve of special intercession for the Holy Souls in Purgatory.

Awake O Sleeper

The Catechism of the Catholic Church shares an ancient homily with us referring to the Salvation of Adam and Eve. It speaks with confidence of the salvation of Adam – who is both Christ’s creation and his father.

[Christ] has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep… He has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who is both their God and the son of Eve… “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son… Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.” (CCC 635)

While this homily is written for Holy Saturday, Adam and Eve’s celebration at the birth of Christ is about more than their own salvation. Our first parents rejoice to see God made Man. With all of creation they welcome the Christ Child with hearts full of gratitude. All of us have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God, but only those who have waited since the dawn of time to see God make all things new can celebrate with the fullness of Adam and Eve.

Looking Toward Heaven

The radio host I listened to said that he hoped Adam and Eve were in heaven, and he assumed there was a long line of people there, “waiting to tell them off.” I hope he was joking. Heaven is not the place for nursing resentments and reflecting on other people’s faults.

If there is a line of people waiting to complain to our first parents about their sin, imagine the line of people waiting to complain about yours and mine. We may not have as many descendants, but we definitely have more sins. Adam, the father of saints, the father of Christ, and Eve – Mother of the living, deserve more from all their children than bitterness and recriminations.

Those of us who want to join them in heaven should look to them for inspiration. Like us, they fell into sin. Like us, they repented. They lived lives of penance – able to see with their own eyes all the ways their sin had affected their children. And they were able to see, with the eyes of hope, just how much it would cost God to call them forth out of Death and into Life.

This Christmas Eve, on the feast of Sts. Adam and Eve, let’s remember to honor our first father and mother. Invite them to intercede for us, and especially for our beloved dead, who wait as they did, for Christ to call out, “I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner… Rise from the dead for I am the life of the dead.”