Saturday, October 10, 2015


ON BECOMING A SAINT 

THE BASIC INGREDIENTS

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YOU
March 1981
by Andrew Costello
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PREDICTION


          In the next 10 years we will begin to notice a return to an emphasis on the Saints in the Catholic Church.

INTRODUCTION


          In this issue of YOU the focus will be on becoming a Saint. Part I will deal with various ideas about the Saints, the need for heroes, some reflections on why there was a de-emphasis of the Saints and why there will be a re-emphasis. Part II will zero in on 3 key ingredients that seem to be the basis for becoming a Saint.


PART I

BECOMING A SAINT



          Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Tom Dooley, Friedrich von Hugel, Marianne Cope of Molokai, Maximilian Kolbe, John Howard Griffin, Pope John XIII, Pope Paul VI, Charles de Foucauld, Mother Teresa, you, me? Who will have been the Saints of the 20th century?

          Based on past experiences we know that there will be many surprises -- unknown people who struggled to love God and neighbors in small corners and neighborhoods around the world.

          We also know that most saints are saints with a small “s”. In this issue of YOU I'll be looking at a phenomenon of Catholic tradition, the Saint with the capital “S”.

CATHOLIC HEROES


          The Saints are Catholic heroes: Francis of Assisi, Therese of Lisieux, Thomas More of Chelsea, Mary of Nazareth -- and a cast of thousands more. The Catholic Church has often proclaimed “heroic” certain people who led lives of love that are worthy of being imitated and venerated.

          And any of us who are over 40 and who have been brought up in the Catholic faith know all about the Saints. Names like Tammy, Jason, Todd, and Dawn were usually “no, no's” for our baptismal certificate. We were named Mary, Joseph, Anthony, and Barbara. At catechism and at church we were told about St. Martin of Tours and St. Monica. When we lost things we prayed to St. Anthony. If we had a hopeless case we prayed to St. Jude. And some even knew that St. Rita was “even better”: she was the Patroness of Impossible Cases.

WHAT HAPPENED?

          Suddenly (for most) St. Christopher and St. Philomena were off the list. Statues of Saints disappeared when church buildings were renovated for the “new liturgy”. Why? What happened to our long tradition of stress, devotion, “advertisements,” books, sermons, holy cards, and pictures of the Saints?

REASONS

          The most obvious answer would be the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 1965).

          On January 25, 1959, after being in office for only 90 days Pope John XXIII announced his plan for an ecumenical council. How's that for a surprise from a 78 year old man? After a lot of preparation he finally started the council in October of 1962. The council took 4 years and John's successor, Paul VI, brought it to completion (December 8, 1965).

          And all of us who have been to meetings know that what is prepared is only that: preparation. It helps. The real “action” takes place where people are away from their daily priorities and put in a room to consider different priorities. The Catholic Church put about 7,000 people in a room --2,300 who had a vote -- and obviously things began to happen. Lots of things were discussed and lots of things were changed.

          But it is after the meeting, after all the talk, after the paper chase and paper writing, that we find out if anything can be accomplished. History points out that it has been after an ecumenical council especially that the real dramatic changes take place  -- actions and reactions, changes in stress and the stress some people feel in change.

          And with the exception of St. Joseph's name being put into the canon of the Mass (a change made by John XXIII without consulting the council), the Saints got lost for the most part in this public re-evaluation by the Catholic Church on its contents.

          This is obvious. The Church from time to time decides to move. And when we move we can't take everything with us. Once this was brought out to me on a retreat. We were given the following Values Clarification Exercise: “If your house was on fire and you could save only 3 things, what would they be: 1) _____________, 2) __________ 3) ____________,?” Well, for any group that becomes sluggish, there are times when its members need to get together and list its values, priorities, and goals -- i.e., if it wants to catch fire. And one of the main roles of the church is the role of Christ, “I have come to light a fire on the earth” (Luke 12:49).

PRIORITIES


          What are the 3 most important values of the Catholic Church: 1) _____________, 2) __________ 3) ____________,? Certainly the Church's tradition about the Saints would not make this list.

          The image or metaphor that John XXIII used to describe his goal for the council was not that of a burning house. It was that of staying in the house and opening up the windows. Yet both wind and fire are symbols of the coming of a New Spirit (Cf. Acts 2: 2-3). Meriol Trevor in her biography of Pope John reports, “When someone asked him what he expected a Council to do, he flung open a window to let in the fresh air” (p. 254).

          The key word is “flung”. Did he? Some people at the grass roots level of the Church felt that the Saints and a lot of other Catholic values were “flung” out of their Church. Cardinal Gracias (Bombay) voiced what many of those uncomfortable with the changes in the Church felt, “Pope John opened the windows slightly to let in fresh air, illustrating thus his `aggiornamento'; others are letting in a hurricane, so that the interested Catholic finds himself at times not only hanging on to his hat, but to his head as well.”

          How loud was the wind at Pentecost?

QUESTION


          With hindsight, 16 years later, can we say that the Church opened up its windows so that the statues of the Saints would be knocked off their pedestals? Did the Church make a change in Catholic practice with regards the Saints?

          The answer is “No.” They were not even on the agenda. Other things were far more important. Christ is more important than St. Patrick or St. Joseph. We all know this. We all knew this. But amongst ourselves, we Catholics admit that many of our brothers and sisters had given up the practice of the faith -- appearing in church for weddings, funerals and to take pictures of kids at baptisms, first communions and confirmations. We all know the jokes about Palm Sunday, Christmas and Easter Catholics. And we knew that some Catholics dropped Christ, but hung onto some Saint (doing this of course not in word, but in practice). Superstition was a reality.

          The light of faith can go out. The fire can die. Ashes (Ash Wednesday) can become more important than the fire -- the burning Fire of the Spirit or the Bread of Life.

          Vatican II helped spark a long list of priorities for Catholics: a greater knowledge of Christ, Bible reading, an improved liturgy, a new attitude toward the world, the call to the laity to holiness and to use their powers and gifts to create a better world, a new attitude toward other Christians and non-Christians, renewal of the clergy and religious, etc. The Saints did not make the list!

          Moreover this ecumenical council had the added feature of trying to reach out to our separated Christian brothers and sisters and some of them did not have our tradition of Saints. Catholics look at Saints as 1) heroes to be imitated, and 2) people we can pray to for help. It was this second point that has often been protested. For example, a group on the 13th century called The Waldenses objected to the idea of praying to the Saints. And in the 16th century Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin also spoke out against this invoking the Saints for help.

          So instead of stressing what we disagree about, we stressed what we can agree upon -- especially our faith in Jesus Christ. Moreover, since the Bible is common to all of us Christians, the Catholic Church in the past 16 years has made an effort to get its members to become more familiar with the Scriptures. In its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation it repeats St. Jerome's warning, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”

          As Andrew Greeley put it, the Church came up with a “New Agenda.”

PREDICTION


          In the next 10 years the Church will place on its practical agenda a return to an emphasis on the Saints.

          The reasons are obvious. We need heroes. We look up to people. We are interested in people more than we are interested in ideas. “Don't talk about love, show me!” The Catholic Church has known this all through its history. For a while, however, we lessened our stress on the Saints, and that includes Mary, to put greater stress on Christ. Some removed statues in hopes that people would focus better on the scripture readings and what was happening at the altar. The eye can only see so much. “Chase two wolves and you won't catch either,” as the Russian proverb goes. Our Church proclaims Christ (Cf. 1 John 1:1-3; Romans 1:1-4.)

          Some had turned from Christ to Mary or a Saint because they pictured Christ as a severe judge or inhuman. Some in practice denied the humanity of Jesus. The research, the books, the work in the field of Christology in this century has been enormous and we won't be receiving its full benefits in the area of popular sermons, literature, and even works of art, till well into the 21st century. But we're all well aware, hopefully, that Christianity is about Christ.

          And now that  we have dramatically re-stressed Christ, especially in his humanity, we will be hearing more about the Saints. They don't take away from Christ. They are ikons of Christ -- as all of us should be. They “endorse” Christ. They endorse the values and teachings of Christ by showing how his followers live the gospel message.

          Long before TV commercials showing famous stars and athletes walking into a tavern to endorse a certain brand of beer, I've heard in sermons many times the story of St. Clement Hofbauer and the day he walked into a tavern. It was in Warsaw and he was German. He went in and begged money for his orphans. The crowd made fun of him because he was a foreigner. In fact they accused him of being a German spy. A cobbler named Wilszek jumped up and said, “You want something for your orphans, do you? Here I'll give you an alms.” He took a big sip of beer and then spat it into the priest's face. For a moment Hofbauer flushed in anger. But he caught himself and wiping the beer from his face said, “That was for me. Now do you have something for my boys.” It worked. What a tremendous TV commercial it would make. It was a dramatic way of endorsing Christ's words about forgiveness which he uttered at the Sermon on the Mount and which he practiced on Mount Calvary.

          So if famous people can endorse beer and panty hose, why not have famous people endorsing forgiveness, care for the poor, and turning the other cheek? This has been the Church's tradition -- to show love in action -- to picture it -- to tell about the Saints.

          And it's the same with statues or pictures of Mary and the Saints. We walk into shopping centers and see al kinds of stores selling posters of Bo Derek, Loni Anderson, Robert Redford, W.C. Fields, etc. And people buy these pictures because they project onto some value.

          People are interested in people. We buy novels and the National Enquirer, watch the “soaps,” Dallas, and Mash. We gossip over the phone and over coffee. We talk inside our heads constantly about what? Most of the time it's not about the weather and sports. No, we spend our energies and money reading, talking, listening, admiring, envying, and thinking about other people. We love people. We hate people. We're jealous of people. We want to be like other people. It's people then, and stories about people, that take up much of our lives.

CHRISTIANITY


          And that's what Christianity is about -- a person and persons. It's not so much about words -- especially rules and regulations -- or teachings, abstractions, and dogmatics. They are important (as we saw dramatically in the stories about the personalities who were on stage at Vatican II). Words like faith, hope and charity need to become flesh. “Don't talk about love, show me” It is beautiful to read that God is love, but it's far more beautiful to see Jesus visiting, touching, healing, caring, feeding and reaching out to people, especially to children. His story showed that God knows about us and our story in particular.

          And that's what Vatican II tells us about becoming a saint (without worrying whether it's a big or a small “s”). All are called to be Jesus in our geography. All are called to holiness. A saint then is Christ, -- the Church, -- God, -- right here, right now. A saint is love present in the world to other people. I heard a sermon once where Chesterton was quoted as saying, “Men are the million masks of God.” Behind our mis, our persona, should be God's love, God. And those who do that, they are the saints, the heroes.

HEROES


          We are living in an age of the expose -- the taking off of masks. Our heroes are often caught in the wrong bedroom or with their hand in the wrong cookie jar. Behind the mask something was missing. And so we look back with nostalgia to the good old days when we had heroes -- people we could look up to without any fear of being disappointed. Willie Nelson sings, “All my heroes have been cowboys and clowns.” W.C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello, Tom Mix, The Lone Ranger, have all left the scene. John Wayne is dead. Send in the Saints.

QUESTIONNAIRE


          In reality we still have heroes -- people we admire and look up to. And becoming aware of who our heroes are will help us become aware of who we are. They are Rorschach Blots. Show me your heroes and I'll tell you who you are.

          Who are the 5 people you admire the most: 1) _________,   2) __________, 3) __________,4) __________,5) __________? Who are the 5 most looked up to people in our world today:  1) _________,   2) __________, 3) __________,4) __________,5) __________? Were you surprised at the way and at the number of people who reacted to the death of Elvis Presley or to the murder of John Lennon? Reflect for a moment about the person you admire and look up to the most. What three qualities do you admire in that person the most:  1) _________,   2) __________, 3) _________ ? Rate yourself on a scare of 1 to 10 (the highest) on how strong each of these qualities are in you. Have any of your heroes ever disappointed you? Is there someone in your family that you look up to? Do you put yourself down as a result?

          What about the Saints in your life? Do you agree with my comments about Vatican II and the Saints? In the past 16 years did they all but disappear from your life? Have you gone totally secular when it comes to heroes? Who are/were your 5 favorite Saints:  1) _________,   2) __________, 3) __________,4) __________,5) __________? Put a quality down for each of the Saints that impress you. What does that say about you? Rate yourself once again on a scale of 1 to 10 regarding those qualities.

LIVES OF THE SAINTS


          One of the great needs in the library of spiritual reading is first rate lives of the Saints. Way before Vatican II we knew this. We moderns are more literate and want more exact research when it comes to biographies and psycho-historical lives of the Saints. Many of the pious and inspirational lives of the past are just that -- literature of the past. The new books will have to have the quality of Ida Friederike Gorres' classic book on St. Therese of Lisieux: The Hidden Face. Or they will have to be like Erik Erikson's book on Young Man Luther or his book about Gandhi, viz, Gandhi's Truth. Or they will have to be like the books that have come out about Dag Hammarskjold, e.g., Sven Stolpe's book, Dag Hammarskjold: A Spiritual Portrait or Gustav Aulen's, Dag Hammarskjold's White Book: The Meaning of Markings.

          Because of historical events like the Kennedy assassination, the Kent State killings, Watergate, etc., we are used to exact investigative reporting or the desire for it. The new lives of the Saints of the future will have to have the quality of good secular biographies or first rate historical novels. The time and work put in by Monica Furlong in her recent book on Merton: A Biography point out how difficult a task it is. The older books were often easier to put together being a different kind of literature.

          Hopefully, authors who make a living writing biographies, will move into this field and tell us more about the Saints. The Saints are unique, profound, strange, amazing, obsessive, real people. They can make excellent reading. And we hope that their sins and weaknesses will not be cut out. Sin sells. Augustine because of his sins and his struggle with a conversion impresses us far more than the story of some Saint being fed by a raven.

BECOMING A SAINT


          This leads us to the end of Part I of this consideration of the Saints. Vatican II and the Scriptures call out God's word to each of us to become a Saint. And the key word is “become”. It's a process, a journey, a pilgrimage, a passage, a step by step transformation, as all those other recent spiritual and secular words for growth bring out.

          Part II of this issue of YOU will bring out 3 main ingredients for becoming a Saint. What 3 ingredients do you think stand out in the lives of the Saints: 1) ___________, 2) ___________, 3) ___________?


PART II
BECOMING A SAINT


          I think that the basic ingredients for becoming a Saint are three: 1) Becoming a person who prays, 2) doing the will of God, and 3) serving the people of God. And psychologically they develop in that order.

1) PRAYER

          A Saint is a person who prays.

          In a recent article on Saints in U.S. Catholic, James Breig gives examples of how varied in personality the Saints have been -- noting some very odd and “mentally sick” characters. Father Thomas Legere in his column Crossfire recently made the point that many of the Saints would not be considered “well adjusted” personalities. To many of us moderns, being well adjusted and having a good self-image are most important values. They are. To the Saints, however, God comes first.

          And putting God first comes from prayer. God is a Saint's first concern -- their top value. In the past 10 years there has probably been more literature -- words -- communication -- books -- tapes -- about prayer than at any time in our Church's history.

          But that is not enough. More than the words about prayer is the need to pray and to make a choice about becoming a person who prays regularly. And that is what the Saints and all this literature and talk about prayer is saying. We need to take time out to pray. Sometimes the multitude of words about prayer can make us immune and “ho hum” about actually praying. We're smart. We know that at “The Other Side of Silence,” the other side of the light (or darkness) is God and God is the one we are scared of. We're scared of what He might ask us to give up. We're scared of what He might asks us to give. And so we avoid God by reading about Him or by saying a lot of words. The words, the books, the Bible, the mantras, the praise, the candles, the atmosphere, the music, all can be helpful, but the moment of Truth comes when we “shut up” and listen to God. Silence. We need silence in the presence (or felt absence) of God.

          And when we are silent before God, the first experience we often have is a recognition of our own sinfulness. It's the basic test of prayer and our basic reaction is either to run away or to ask God to run away from us. We're like Peter -- all mouth (especially in our prayers) -- and suddenly we realized the transcendence of Christ and we fall down saying, “Leave me, Lord. I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). If we can't understand why the Saints -- people we consider 1000 times better than ourselves -- are always seeing their sinfulness, then perhaps we never have gotten that close to God in prayer.

2) THE WILL OF GOD

          After that initial shock of our sinfulness God will give us a mission. Peter was called to be more than a fisher of fish. “With that they brought their boats to land, left everything, and became his followers” (Luke 5:11).

          It always happens. That's how God works. He has a will of His own. We know that. We know that -- but when we experience that -- we fall to our knees in awe and fear and a host of other emotions. Prayer for many is making requests of God. From the Saints we learn that prayer is usually God making requests of us. Prayer is more God asking us for help than we asking God for help.

          “The will of God.” I used to hate that phrase. It always sounded so cold -- so hard to take -- sort of as if the words were made of razor blades. It always seemed to appear along with news about suffering, cancer, or death. Or it was used in situations where people asked me to do things I felt were their will and not God's.

          Leo Dunn, a priest and good friend, with whom I have been giving retreats with for the past 4 years, mentioned once in a sermon something that destroyed my narrow understanding of the phrase, “The will of God.” Talking about Jesus and what motivated him, he mentioned the Datsun commercial: “We are driven!”

          All of us are driven people.

          The think that drove Jesus was the will of the Father. And the Father is driven! Jesus spent a lot of time alone in prayer and he came out of that inner room -- that desert -- a driven person. “Doing the will of him who sent me and bringing his work to completion is my food” (John 4: 34).

          In prayer, after being hit with the feeling of sinfulness, after the feeling of running away is felt, then suddenly we realize that God is a “person” and persons have a will of their own. Persons have dreams. Persons have hopes, visions, and an agenda. Martin Luther King Jr. screamed out in Washington D.C., “I have a dream.” He was dreaming the dream of Isaiah. He was dreaming the dream of God for us.

          Don't I? Billy Joel sings, “Everybody has a dream.” I have a dream of my own -- plans, hopes, ideas about what I want to do today, tomorrow, next week, this Lent, this year. I have priorities. They drive me. I vote with my feet. I vote with the way I spend my time. I spend my time doing what I want to do, what I like to do. And when I have to do things I don't like to do, I do them because of my own needs (to make others happy, to earn a living, to gain prestige, etc.). And often I wish and imagine I am elsewhere “doing my own thing.”

          There it was, -- a way to understand the meaning of the phrase, “The will of a person.” There it is, a way of understanding the great wrestling match that takes place in prayer. Christ wrestled with his will and the Father's will (The Way) all through his life -- in the temple, in the desert, in the mountains, in Jerusalem, in the garden, on the cross. The Saints did likewise.

          “The will of God.” The phrase sill sounds cold and sharp like a sword. But when I pray I won't hear the phrase, “The will of God”, specifically. No, I'll hear something else -- other words.

3) SERVICE

          When I pray, I'll hear the names of people. I'll become more aware of those around me -- especially the poor and the suffering. Prayer then is never an ego trip.

          A short time before his death, Abraham Joshua Heschel, a great modern rabbi and “descendent of the prophets”, made a remarkable autobiographical confession on The Eternal Light TV program. Before he began working on his profound book, The Prophets, he said he loved to spend his time thinking, meditating, reading, and being by himself in his study. But when he began to read the prophets he found out that God wanted him elsewhere -- in the streets, out there doing something about prejudice, war, peace, housing, jobs. These are the cries of the prophets. God takes life very seriously. God takes how we treat one another very seriously. We learn this from reading the prophets.

          We learn this from listening to the prophet, Jesus. When Jesus came out of the carpenter shop, and then out of the desert after his long prayer, he came back to Nazareth. He became a driven man. Luke tells us how he went to his own neighborhood synagogue, stood up, unrolled the book of the prophet Isaiah and found the passage where it was written,

                    “The spirit of the Lord is upon me;
                              therefore he has anointed me.
                    He has sent me to bring glad tidings
                              to the poor, to proclaim
                              liberty to captives,
                    Recovery of sight to the blind
                              and release to prisoners,
                    To announce a year of favor
                              from the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19)

          A phrase like “the will of God” might not get us out of our study -- or ourselves -- but those words of Isaiah, which announce a profound liberation theology, could drive a person to give one's life for others.

          And if we read the lives of the Saints, we'll see just that -- people deeply concerned about the poor -- people deeply driven by a dream -- people driven by love -- people who have come to serve and not to be served. (Cf. Luke 22: 25-27)

          Jesus washed feet. Francis kissed the leper. Jesus fed the hungry. Frances Cabrini took care of orphans in Cogogno, Italy and New York City. Jesus reached out to children. Benedict Joseph Labre, the beggar Saint, gave alms he received to those he felt were more needy. Jesus healed the possessed boy. Vincent de Paul freed slaves.

          Service. Isn't that what the Saints did? Isn't that what we all want -- from the person in the restaurant wondering where the waitress is to the uncomfortable and sometimes impatient patient in the hospital bed wondering where the nurse is. We all complain about our public servants: politicians, priests, teachers, doctors, people who repair cars and appliances, etc. We go to the public restroom hoping it will be clean. We want service. We like good service.

          God's will, dream, plan, way for the world is a Kingdom, a place, where all will be servants. If you can buy that then you're saying, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done ....”

CONCLUSION


          Prayer then leads to service which is the will of God.

          In a talk at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, historian William Irwin Thompson, said that people in the 1960's, who were part of the Encounter Group scene, etc., were told to get in touch with their dark side. And when they told a group, “I have dreams of raping women and killing people,” the others would say, “Now you're really getting in touch with your basic human nature.” But if you said, “I have dreams about being a Saint,” the others would say, “You got a hang up. Why are you always holding onto this sense of perfection? Let it all hang out. Get in touch with your shadow.”

          Hopefully this issue of YOU about becoming a Saint stirred up in you a desire to approach God about what He wants of you. Hopefully, you will be part of the prediction I opened up this issue of YOU with: “In the next 10 years we will begin to notice a return to an emphasis on the Saints in the Catholic Church.”

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