By Dr. Doug Skinner
Senior Minister, Northway Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Past President, Greater Dallas Community of Churches

"There is one mediator between God and humanity, Jesus Christ ..."
— I Timothy 2:5

I envy the Catholics their Saints.

Even as a child I was inspired by the stories of faithful men and women who valued Christ above all else and showed it by their lives of heroic devotion – Stephen, Perpetua and Felicity, Polycarp, Thomas More, Damien of Molokai, Teresa of Calcutta. In I Peter we are told that Jesus left us an example that we should follow in His steps (2:21). The word for "example" here in the text is the wonderful Greek word "hupogammos" (from "hupo" meaning "before, and "grapho" meaning "to write"). It referred to a line of letters at the top of a tablet written by a teacher so that students could write under it, fashioning letters just like those of the teacher.

I think of how I learned to write cursive in grade school. Over the chalk board on a strip wrapping around the classroom there were all of the letters of the alphabet. We would look up and then try to imitate the lines and curves of the letters we saw up there on the chalk board right in front of us. It was a tedious and often frustrating experience. The perfection of the letters shaped above us only exposed the imperfection of the letters that we were shaping. Real help arrived when the teacher would finally come around and actually take our hands in hers, helping us to shape the letters. It was actually feeling the sweeps and swirls of our hands in hers as together we fashioned the letters that began to cut the grooves in our brains and muscle memories to be able to write cursive for ourselves. And this, it seems to me, is the value of having Saints.

Of course, Jesus is our example. As Christians we are devoted to following "in His steps." What serious Christian has not asked in a variety of morally and spiritually confusing situations, "What would Jesus do?" The problem is that Jesus as the "new Adam" who is "without sin" can seem to be on an entirely different plain. It's like looking up at that strip of perfect letters high above the chalk board, and then trying to clumsily imitate them. Sometimes what we need is someone right beside us to take us by the hand and help us actually shape the letters, and that's what I see the Saints providing. They are human examples, flesh and blood models who can help us in our journey of imitating Christ. And isn't this what Paul meant when he told the Corinthians to imitate him in imitating Christ (11:1)?

Theologians call these concrete examples who help us in our own attempts to mimic Christ "subordinate mediators"; human channels cut between Christ and ourselves the help to mediate some of the power and possibilities available to us as we try to follow Him. These are the Saints, and Feliberto is one of them. I have often said that Feliberto Periera is "our" Mother Teresa as Disciples of Christ. And what I have meant by that is that he is a source of inspiration for imitation. He shows that the radical invitations of Christ to lives of compassion and reconciliation as His disciples are not beyond us. In the simplicity and sincerity of his devotion to Christ, Feliberto points unswervingly to the Savior whose self-giving sacrifice not only saves us for eternity, but shapes us for the living of our days in the here and now.

From my very first days as a freshly minted minister working with Frank Mabee in the Coastal Plains Area of Texas to supply Disciples Rice, to my years of ministry in the Hi Plains of Texas working with leaders like Ernie Miller to supply Disciple Beans, to my present ministry in Dallas and working with my congregation each year to provide Christmas presents through Mike's Kids, I have had the privilege of knowing Feliberto as a friend, a colleague and a mentor. But most importantly, I have had the blessing of having Feliberto as one of the living saints in my life. He has challenged me to greater faithfulness to Jesus Christ by his life of joyful obedience to the Gospel in all its fullness – good news for human bodies and souls in this world and the world to come.

And so I welcome this book.

As Feliberto has been a powerful subordinate mediator in my life to Jesus Christ, so now through Chris Kelley's labor of love, this book can become your subordinate mediator to Feliberto who in turn will lead you to Jesus Christ. And so I urge you to "take up and read." The hours I spent with this book challenged and inspired me once again to think about where Jesus Christ is waiting for me to see Him in the disguise and the distress of those in need around me, and to reach out with the kind of joyful compassion that has become Feliberto's way of life, the way of a Saint in our midst.