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ON SAINTS
Dorothy Day's classic comment on the nature of sainthood should give
us all pause: "Don't call me a saint," she warned. "I don't want to
be dismissed that easily."
The line stops us in mid-flight. It makes us think. Just exactly
what are we looking for when we call a person a saint? What exactly
does it imply for our own lives when we call someone a saint?"
What is there about the word "saint" that could possibly trivialize a
woman as dynamic, as steely, as relentless in her pursuit of good as
Dorothy Day?
And does the word saint "trivialize" sanctity or does it simply
forgive the likes of us the possibility--the obligation--of being one?
Somewhere along the line, did the word "saint" start being more a
synonym for the pious and the docile, the submissive and the childish,
than it was a designation for the strong and the committed?
The questions are real ones. They point up the difference between
what may be more psychological traits than spiritually cultivated.
"Pious" and "docile" are personality traits, for instance, that can
exist in anyone anywhere---and for a number of reasons. We learn to
be pious and docile to impress people, maybe. Or to gain public
approval, perhaps, as in "she is so humble; he is so good." But
whatever the motive, such things are obviously not necessarily the
stuff of holiness. In fact, the history of the saints often
demonstrates just the opposite kinds of behavior.
So how do we integrate that kind of spiritual response with the other
far more common sense of what it means to be "spiritual," to be "saintly"?
Submission and childlike obedience, too, are, at best, fine
organizational virtues. What authorities of any stripe wouldn't
prefer to lead a group of unquestioning fellow travleres rather than a
group of fiercely committed idealists? After all, who needs to answer
questions from agitated people in the midst of managing the high and
mighty process of maintaining a system?
And yet, more often than not, it is precisely piety and deference that
have so often been called "saintly" even when the piety was grossly
self-centered and the deference spoke more os sycophancy than it did
of spiritual conviction.
Piety, docility, submissiveness and childishness all ring of
self-indulgence. They keep us safe in society.
[End of excerpt; the meditation goes on for several pages]
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