I fail to understand why everything has to be turned into a confrontation and a battle. If we are trying to teach each other and to promote authentic Catholic Spirituality, we must stay away from such rhetoric as “fight, sinister, plot, conspiracy, proof, etc”. The saints did not live in bubbles. The lived in a world very much like our own. There were issues within the Church and in the world around the Church. However, they did not raise the bar in conflicts. Instead, they brought great stability, peace and common sense to every situation.
Look at a modern saint, Bl. Mother Teresa. She lived in our world and in our time. She saw all kinds of things happen inside the Church and in the world around her. However, if one reads her writings and her talks, she talks about Jesus, the poor, sin, charity, mercy, justice, the Eucharist, the Blessed Mother and many other topics. She does not talk about people. She often became very upset when someone approached her with, “Did you know what Father X said or what Bishop Y did?” She didn’t want to know. As far as she was concerned, she had one duty in life, to please Jesus.
In order to please Jesus, she did many things that made her very different from other religious sisters. First, she ceased being a nun and became a sister. That was different. Long before Vatican II called for the revision of habits and their adaptation to climates, cultures and charisms, she gave up the use of a European habit and created an Indian one. When COTH arrived where her sisters and brothers were, she never prohibited it, contrary to a misquote that is going around. She said that she continued to receive COTT and she gave her reasons for it. Nevertheless, she never made it a mandatory rule for her two congregations. This was unique. In a world where everyone wants to control how everyone else adores God, this holy woman wanted to do nothing of the kind. She had every right to do so. She was the Superior General. Her position was that this was a personal choice and if the Church allowed it, then it was up to her sisters and brothers to choose for themselves.
Interestingly enough, long before everyone else started standing to receive Holy Communion, Mother Teresa began to do so in the mid 1940s. On her journey from being a Loretto Nun to being a Sister Missionary of Charity, she read the rule and life of St. Francis of Assisi. I do not know for sure that she read the Modus Procedendi of the Franciscans. However, the Constitutions of the Missionaries of Charity and her life suggest that she may have. They contain many Franciscan customs, one of them being chapels without communion rails and kneelers, which is a very old and standing to receive Holy Communion. Actually, you genuflect then stand.
She prayed alongside Muslims and Hindus. While they did their thing, she prayed her rosary, kneeling or sitting right next to them. When she arrived in an unknown city she would find the parish closest to the airport and announce to whoever opened the door that Christ wanted her to spend the night there.
The point is that she did tons of things that were very different from the way that other people did them. She did not notice it. However, she never spoke against anyone who did not do things her way, nor did she engage in battles with people.
She reminds me of St. Anthony of Padua who fought heresy by not talking about it. Now that’s a hoot. He became the Iron Hammer against heresy. He preached the truth. When he walked into a town where the heretics were preaching that the sacraments were unnecessary, Anthony would preach about the great love and mercy that God wants to share with us through the sacraments. He avoided mentioning that the guy over in the next building is talking nonsense. He deliberately avoided making such criticisms, because his spiritual father, Francis, showed respect and love for all people and preached the faith, rather than debate about the errors against the faith. One of Anthony’s greatest acts of charity was to conceal his knowledge until he was outed by the Minister Provincial.
He is another saint who was a very different kind of person and did not know it, because he did not pay attention to it. He was a religious for 18-years, first an Augustinian and then a Franciscan. He was a scholar, missionary, preacher, professor of theology and a superior. About three-years before he dies, he is ordained a priest. One would have thought that he would have been a priest, given his achievements. That was not the case. That’s not why he entered the Augustinians or the Franciscans. He entered the Augustinians to live a quiet life of penance. He left them and joined the Franciscans because he made a deal with the Franciscan superior. “If you promise me that I can go to the missions, I’ll join your order.” They agreed and he received the dispensation to leave the Augustinians and join the Friars Minor. The best part about it is that he did not look or act like a great scholar, theologian, preacher, priest and superior. He was boyish, very short, overweight, with a dumb look on his face, couldn’t grow the mandatory beard, and he was described as loving to laugh, sing, play and having a photographic memory. He read the scriptures and memorized them by page, chapter, number and verse.
Sanctity is achieved through great courage and in great peace, even if on the outside, it does not look like peace. The saints paid attention to the Church, to the Scriptures, and to Sacred Tradition. They were very spontaneous in their worship and in their charity. They never thought about being pious.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
And sadly, true …
