“Martyrs of Uganda, 1881?”
My Life With the Saints got such good reviews that I decided I’d check it out myself. To be honest, I think I probably had some kind of idea that maybe it would make me think about Damian. I should know better than to bring too many expectations into a book.
At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. It was engaging, but maybe not quite what I had imagined. I thought it would be more about his life, but instead there were mini-biographies on each of the saints he talks about interspersed with personal reflections and experiences. I patiently read through the chapters on Ignatius of Loyola and Pedro Arrupe, wondering why Robert Ellsberg (according to the cover blurb) called this, “One of the best spiritual memoirs in years.”
And then. The chapter on St. Bernadette. I didn’t know anything about St. Bernadette, but I realized, in reading it, that I’d heard her story before. And somewhere in the middle of that chapter, it all clicked for me, what he was doing. He’s introducing us to each saint in the order that he was introduced to them, explaining their story, and giving us a bit about his connection to them. He even said that’s what he was going to do in the introduction, but I hadn’t quite understood until that chapter exactly how his own story was also unfolding in the pages.
Maybe part of the reason I was kind of detached from the book is that I don’t get into praying to the saints. I think, though, that Protestants can be so afraid of the saints that we don’t bother to learn anything about the people who have gone before us. In reading this (and other books on saints this year), what I am starting to realize is that, even if I don’t get into the mystical aspect, whether Bernadette and Joan of Arc really saw visions and heard voices, there are things I can learn from them about trusting God in the face of opposition. James Martin says, “Bernadette has become for me a symbol of the need to stay true to your own personal vision.” Now, Bernadette saw visions of Mary, which I am not really in the habit of doing, but I do let people’s opinions matter too much. I let negative feedback destroy the way I see myself. Instead of worrying about what others think, I should be focused on God.
After that, it was much easier to enjoy learning more about Mother Teresa (who served even while struggling in her spiritual life), Pope John XXIII (whose good humor and ability to love are an excellent example to us all), Joseph (whose life we know so little about, despite the fact that some call him “the noblest of men,” making him an example of serving others without much glory from the world). All these people had very real ups and downs, and yet managed by the grace of God to be faithful and to serve in the ways that they were gifted. There’s no one way to be a saint. The key is trusting in God.
By the time I got to the Ugandan Martyrs (which Martin said are not well known in this part of the world, although they are featured in Millions), I felt like a whole world had opened up to me. I am still not a fan of praying to the saints, but thinking about the lives of the saints doesn’t have to be about praying to them. It can just be about gaining inspiration from regular people who do extraordinary things. So as I finished the book, when Martin mentioned praying to the saints, I could imagine him as a sort of grown-up Damian, asking for advice and help from Peter and Thomas Merton and Mary as he goes about his day. In the end, I found that paying attention to that great cloud of witnesses was less about slightly strange things like visions and stigmata and more about being faithful in the small things of life, honoring God with the gifts you’ve been given. And that’s something I know Damian would approve of.
April 14th, 2006 at
Thank-you for this post. I have just went now and put that book on reserve at my library. I can’t wait to read it. I read “The Song of Bernadette” a long time ago, and I remember I had mixed feelings about it even then.
“He draws a distinction, however, between the superstition that sometimes surrounds Catholics’ reverence for the saints and true devotion to them.” (amazon review)
This has always been my sticking point regarding prayer to the saints. I’ve always been wary of the superstitious aspect, overly careful maybe. I still recoil a bit when I hear one of my orthodox friends ask, “I’ve lost the keys to my apartment; who’s the patron saint of lost things?”. Actually, I recoil a lot. To me, this is trivializing. I signed out a book from the library, I think it was the Oxford book of the saints, or somesuch title. The book was set up as a sort of ‘traveler’s guide to the saints’. There was a small bio, a story of his/her miracles, how he/she came to be reverenced as the patron saint of _______. I can’t remember the name of the saint, but there was the “patron saint of salt and cheese merchants, tanners, and leather-workers, invoked against nervous diseases and twitching.” If this is not trivilializing the life of a great man of God, I don’t know what is. I wonder if they sit in the kingdom, just shaking their heads at these definitions we’ve given them. And the language: “invoked”?! I wonder at the fruitfulness of the practice, it just strikes me as so medieval.
My own patron saint is St.Cassianne the hymnographer. I pray to her occasionally, but primarily, all my prayers are directed to Christ my Saviour. I can ask St.Cassianne to intercede on my behalf, but I must admit I do this rarely, although I do feel a real affinity, and also that I’ve become ‘closer’ to her over the years. This is something I can’t explain. It just is what it is.
April 14th, 2006 at
I’m not sure if this is kosher or not, but thanks for the kind words about my book. You really “got” it, which is extremely gratifying for me. And the fact that someone who wasn’t a big saint fan would have something “click” in the chapter on Bernadette Soubirous, a saint who sometimes turns off even pious Catholics, is proof of the wonderful ways that God can work in one’s life. Writing straight with crooked lines and all that.
Funny enough, I’m a huge fan of “Millions,” and even wrote a piece for America magazine, where I work: Damian’s way of relating to the saints–as real people–was so refreshing, especially since movies usually portray the saints as either crazy or boring or perfect, or some combination of the three. (And who couldn’t like St. Clare smoking a cigarette?) Ironically, during the “test-marketing” phase of “Millions” I was shown the movie (strangely, by myself in a movie theater) to see what kind of comments I might have about it. At the end of the movie I was supposed to speak into a tape recorder, ostensibly so that the director could hear my reactions. Well, I was so choked up by the ending (no spoilers here, don’t worrry) that I could barely speak. On the other hand, the original movie had the eldest brother using the F-bomb twice and I suggested that the movie would lose none of its zip without the bad language and parents might like it even more. So that was my amazingly minor contribution to the contemporary cinema.
Anyway, what I really wanted to say was thanks, and I hope that you continue to meet the saints and continue to be intrigued and inspired by their lives.
Peace, James Martin, SJ