Saints & Lunatics

The Catholic Faith is riddled with mysteries. Our souls drive to penetrate and understand, to be satiated for a moment only to discover that every answer carries with it a new depth which begs to explained. And so God, the Infinite and Eternal, shows the truth attested to by St. Thomas Aquinas, that despite how much we might know about God, we do not know even the half of it.

A recent romance with the Faith has been thinking about and considering mystics and prayers. We all are familiar with numerous saints who were clearly (and comfortably called) mystics. We are familiar with stories about apparitions and divine messages handed down to particular folks in bygone eras. We are quick to accept the miraculous when it is distant. But what happens when the miraculous or the normally unbelievable occurs in your sphere of influence? What happens when your life is intersected by the inexplicable?

St. Francis of Assisi is a respected and venerated saint. Described as the “most admired and least imitated,” we all know the story of the suffering, humble servant of Christ. I am curious, though, whether he would be so well admired if he were your neighbor, right this very instant. Would we believe him a saint, or a lunatic?! Would we suggest he see a shrink, or describe him charitably as “simple-minded?” Would our skeptical mentality see his stigmata and immediately posit they are either self-inflicted, or the source of a particular, acute medical condition?

You see, I am guilty of assuming that the typical spiritual posture is akin to my own. We all, I think, peg ourselves as the standard for normalcy and label anything else outside our pattern of prayer and charity as “a bit off-the-rocker,” so to speak. Yet none of the Faithful are without reprieve. Flannery O’Connor said that the with Jesus, “you will know the Truth and the Truth will make you odd.” Any degree of faithfulness in this world plagued by relativism, nihilism, hopelessness and greed makes you a freak—whether you pray quietly at a prie dieu or ramble away in tongues.

I do not suggest that any self-purported posture of prayer is legitimate, but only note that the realm of possibility must exceed my own experience. When confronted with some of those possibilities one might marvel rather than condemn; be intrigued rather than skeptical; appreciate rather than shun. The Angel of Darkness certainly appears as an angel of light, but sometimes the Angel of Light really is the Angel of Light! And the mysterious depths of God are equally capable of being portrayed by the multitude of eclectic saints who sometimes have little in common except for their faith in Christ and His Church.

I’ve never had God speak to me in a booming voice either externally or in my own mind. Grace for me is felt rather than seen or heard. Probably the greatest barometer for me in knowing God’s presence is the hair on the back of my neck, or the tingling, almost levitating feeling that suddenly accompanies certain situations. This is really the extent of my mystical experience, the most clear way God speaks to me. Yet, for some God may send His saints and angels to appear. Who am I to judge? The real heart of the matter is not the means by which the message is conveyed, but the disposition of the heart and soul that the message reaches and the corresponding result of the message. What makes the prayer believable is their willingness to follow and believe what they say they have been told. When one is willing to endure hardship for the sake of their belief, then we have certain degree of affirmation.

The difference between a snake oil salesman and a prophet is their willingness to suffer ridicule, condemnation, poverty, and persecution. The preacher who posits divine revelation disclosed to him that the world would end last weekend isn’t a fool because he proposes God spoke to him, but he is a fool because he expects us to believe God spoke to him when he doesn’t even believe it—he reaped a multi-million dollar stream of revenue and planned on going into work on Monday after his proposed end-of-time deadline passed. The fanatic Waco Branch-Davidian is not an idiot because he says God speaks to him, but because the fanatic claims God told him he was God, the Messiah. The true prayer is the one whose prayers lead him to Calvary—not the bank, not the throne. Genuineness lies in our accepting the Cross joyfully, willingly, and humbly for the sanctity of souls. We are going to be asked to give by God, for we owe Him our entire selves. This is the mark, the touchstone by which to gauge the prayer. He calls me to Him one way, He calls others to Him in other ways—but each way is as equally stark, raving mad. The bottom line is if St. Francis were alive today, I would think him a lunatic and a saint—because quite frankly, I am not sure there is a difference. So, let’s all be nuts (saints) together and aim for the loony-bin in the sky (Heaven)!