St. Blaise

Today’s the feast of St. Blaise.

In the collection of previously (mostly) unpublished letters of Flannery O’Connor, we run across this:

The Churches ceremony of Baptism is so elaborate! I keep trying to think of some way in fiction that I could convey the richness against the threadbareness of the other but my thought is none to productive. The Church takes care of everything and I am always struck fresh with it on St. Blases Day when you have your throat blessed. The One True Holy Catholic & Apostolic Church taking time out to bless my throat! And these people around here have to scratch their religion out of the ground. (16)

The One True Holy Catholic & Apostolic Church taking time out to bless my throat!

So much of the verbiage we hear these days from Church people, ordained and lay, is really all implying that two thousand years of practice and tradition is not only inadequate to the 21st century, but actually an obstacle to authentic faith, giving you that feeling that you’d be better off scratching your religion out of the ground, daily.

Watch out for that.

He’s in The Loyola Kids Book of Saints under “Saints are people who help in ordinary ways.”

(Click on images for larger versions. I just grabbed these screenshots from whatever is available online. I don’t have any copies of the book at home at the moment!)

St. Blaise is the figure standing in the cave to the left.

It seems to me that this is such a vital point – saints are people who help in ordinary ways – to remember, especially in these days of empowerment and awesomeness.

Mass, instant communication, mobility and relative prosperity and political and social freedom have had an interesting impact on the way we think about and present spirituality. It’s something I think about a lot. It’s something I wonder about.

In short: even in spiritually-minded circles, the spiritually-fulfilled life is presented as one in which you are doing the amazing, world-changing things that God put you on earth to do and – although this part might go unsaid, it’s certainly implicit in the way this is hustled: in doing the amazing, world-changing things and not hiding your light under a bushel, you’ll find satisfaction, make a living and be known and affirmed. 

This isn’t the Gospel.

The Gospel, as concretely expressed in the crucifix hanging in front of you as you go to Mass this morning, and as you’ll hear articulated in the second reading from Paul is, Let God love others through you. They might kill you for it. It doesn’t matter. Keep loving.

Not “fulfillment.” Sacrifice.

As St. Francis of Assisi emphasizes over and over again – the Christian life is rooted in love that calls, bottom line, for sacrificing our own will to the will of God. That’s the poverty to which St. Francis aspired: a poverty of will. That’s why Philippians 2 was one of his primary Scriptural reference points.

We like to refashion the saints as model 21st century achievers and doers, but Christian virtue and the power of the Christian life isn’t about using the circumstances of your life to build yourself up or feel fulfilled. It’s about being in the midst of the circumstances of your life, surrounded by the people that God has put there, and trying to love them as Jesus loves us: sacrificially and obediently.

In ordinary ways, here in Ordinary Time.

Note: I had purchased that collection when it came out, and was decidedly put off by the editing and commentary. In that respect, I agree completely with Cassandra Nelson’s review here.