Complaints of the Saints E-Book

Mary Lea Hill

• Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Complaints of the Saints by Sr. Mary Lea Hill, FSP, shares some of the saints’ responses to suffering. The witty anecdotes and wisdom Sr. Hill shares are both consoling and relatable, teaching us that the saints experienced the same emotions and feelings we do in the face of hardship. After all, the saints used their human nature, faults, and even complaints, to help them grow closer to God.

Leseprobe

COMPLAINTSof theSaints

COMPLAINTSof theSaints

STUMBLING ON HOLINESSWITH A CRABBY MYSTIC

BY MARY LEA HILL, FSP

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019952634

CIP data is available.

ISBN 10; 0-8198-1683-3

ISBN 13: 978-0-8198-1683-2ISBN (ePub): 978-0-8198-1684-9

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Cover design by Dan Wegendt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

“P” and PAULINE are registered trademarks of the Daughters of St. Paul.

Copyright © 2020, Daughters of St. Paul

Published by Pauline Books & Media, 50 Saint Pauls Avenue, Boston, MA 02130-3491

www.pauline.org

Pauline Books & Media is the publishing house of the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation of women religious serving the Church with the communications media.

Contents

A Monk’s Tale

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I

Complaints and Their Causes

1. Lamentability

2. Complaints Are Common

3. Why We Complain

4. Both/And

5. Normal People

6. Oops!

7. Learned Behavior

8. Ease, If You Please

9. My Genes Are Too Tight

10. Compliance

11. Porcupines

PART II

Complaints of Some Saints

12. Definition of a Saint (Saints and Aints)

13. Why Pray to the Saints?

14. Guess Who Complained

15. Jesus, Too!

16. Standards

17. Holy Equality

18. Contemporary Complaints

19. First Love

20. Three Ts

21. La Madre Says

22. Lisieux

23. Saint Thérèse and the Rosary Banger

24. Poorest of the Poor

25. Patron Saint of Complainers

26. How Paul Did It

27. Leper Priest

28. Brother Leo’s Complaint

29. Divine Mercy

30. Domestic Holiness

31. Saintly Doppelganger

32. There’s Nothing to Do!

33. What a Disappointment

34. Why Am I So Unlovable?

35. Blown Call

36. Holy Mountain

37. Moving Men

38. Thanks for Asking, Saint Gertrude

39. Dear Diary

40. “Since Thou Dost Love”

PART III

Complaints from the Holy Book

41. Red Flags

42. Too Heavy for Me

43. Complaining Prophet

44. Where Were You?

45. Complaint Inside a Complaint

46. Two Men Walk Into

47. Front for Faults

48. Trashing

49. More Trashing

50. In the Beginning

PART IV

Learning from the Saints How to Handle Complaining

51. Look the Part

52. My Sainted “Other”

53. Statuesque

54. Truth Be Told

55. Wishing Well

56. Terrible News

57. Imperfect Perfection

58. Perfect Imperfection

59. Facial Recognition

60. Life Vision

61. Two Who Could Have

62. Alberione’s Advice

63. Little Conversations

64. Super-Duper Hero

65. Saints and Complaints

66. Daily Challenge

Characteristics of Charity

I.

Charity is patient

II.

Charity is kind

III.

Charity does not envy

IV.

Love is not pretentious

V.

Love is not puffed up

VI.

Love is not ambitious

VII.

Love is not self-seeking

VIII.

Charity is not provoked

IX.

Charity thinks no evil

X.

Charity doesn’t rejoice over wickedness (injustice)

XI.

Charity rejoices with the truth

XII.

Charity bears all things

XIII.

Charity believes all

XIV.

Charity hopes all things

XV.

Charity endures all things

XVI.

Reading from First Corinthians

Postscript

Notes

To our founder, Blessed James Alberione, who said,“It makes me rejoice when one of you brings me a bookthat you have written. I offer it immediately to God.”1

A Monk’s Tale

The young monk had a vow of silence. Once a year his superior asked how things were going.

The first year he replied: “Food’s bad.”

The next year he said: “Bed’s hard.”

The third year he commented: “Chapel’s cold.” Then he added simply: “I quit.”

“And it’s a good thing,” his superior said, “because for three years all you’ve done is complain.”

Acknowledgments

Scripture quotations noted in this book are taken from the following:

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved (NRSV).

The New Testament: St. Paul Catholic Edition, translated by Mark A. Wauck, copyright © 2000 by the Society of St. Paul, Staten Island, New York, and are used by permission. All rights reserved (TNT).

Scripture texts in this work are taken from The Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version, copyright © 1995, American Bible Society, 1865 Broadway, New York, NY 10023, and are used by permission (CEV).

Scripture texts from the book of Psalms are taken from The Psalms: A Translation from the Hebrew, translated by Miguel Miguens, copyright © 1995, Daughters of St. Paul. All rights reserved. Used with permission (MP).

Other Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible with The New Testatment translated under the auspices of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) © 1955, 1960, 1961, Daughters of St. Paul. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

The writing of Mother Teresa of Calcutta © by the Mother Teresa Center, exclusive licensee throughout the world of the Missionaries of Charity for the works of Mother Teresa. Used with permission.

Excerpts from papal and magisterium texts copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Introduction

You may be tempted to ask why another book on the saints? At which point I would be tempted to retort: is that a complaint?

Holiness is an activity open to everyone. Of course, it is no secret that saints have problems and saints can be problems as well.

We have all read books about saints who appear to be made of plaster of paris. Not that these saints were mere statues, but they never moved out of their holiest poses. We never saw their humanness, what made them so like us. We saw their heroism, their holiness, but not their humanity. Biographers were simply overzealous by attempting to make the saint’s halo shine brightly as an exemplar of all things virtuous.

For many readers, myself included, this type of writing is off-putting. It’s not that someone couldn’t have lived such a stellar life, but since that isn’t our experience, the accounts fail to teach us anything useful. Certainly, we admire the saints, but we don’t have much incentive to imitate someone presented as confirmed in virtue because we aren’t starting from a level playing field. While they progressed straight through every obstacle, we keep spinning our wheels on the road to perfection. Therefore, I’ve decided to write about saints from the perspective of their faults in order to observe their steps toward victory.

This book will not be a defense of our personal defects, but rather a celebration of our successes. We want holiness, but we also want our own way. We really are the “children” of God with so many whims and wants that get in the way of God’s plans for us.

With this in mind, let’s focus on the tendency to complain. Why do we care if we have complainers around? They are just annoying for the most part. If we ourselves are the complainers, however, it should be concerning. First and foremost because Jesus tells us we are to be holy, in fact, as perfect as the heavenly Father (see Mt 5:48). And complaining just doesn’t seem all that perfect. The mandate to be perfect may appear a bit steep, but it’s simply this: to try to love God with our whole mind, will, and heart, and love our neighbor as ourselves.

I don’t know about you, but it bothers me that I complain. It tells me that my personal program of life is not in sync with Jesus’ program. So, the next best step is to try making some sense of the whole wide world of complaints. What better way to go about this than to take a look at how certain saints dealt with complaints? Which saints complained? Isn’t it a bit of a scandal to even admit that they might have complained? And, what would saints have complained about?

True confession: I chose the topic of complaints because it’s the area I’m most familiar with. It is an expression of my own character, which explains my tagline: The Crabby Mystic. I am a crabby person called to holiness. I can also attest to the fact that when we are on a personal quest for holiness (as we all should be), enlightenment often comes from something we stumble upon rather than from years of prayer and reflection. So I invite you to join me to see what this all meant to the saints and what it can mean for you and me.

PART I

Complaintsand Their Causes

1

Lamentability

Words can be a problem. For example, how often do I have to check myself on whether to use compliment or complement in a sentence? The dilemma is the same for anecdote and antidote or laid and lied. I remember being called up to my teacher’s desk in second or third grade because I had chosen incorrectly between come and came. I tried arguing that it was difficult to tell the difference between them, but the teacher suggested that I study better.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”2

And when it comes to arguments and complaints, like Humpty Dumpty, we do intend that our word usage is the master meaning.

The choice of words, their meaning, their usage, and the ensuing arguments are also leading contributors to the fine art of complaint. There had to have been an original kerfuffle, of course, but how words are used and how they are understood can quickly lead us down the path of confrontation.

Not all complaints are created equal. They come in all shapes and sizes and exist for all sorts of reasons. Basically, a complaint expresses dissatisfaction with something that is wrong, unfair, or unacceptable. Dictionaries tell us that the root of complaint is from the Latin complangere, meaning “lament.” We can see this in the word plaintive, as in a plaintive cry, or from a plaintiff’s reaction. From this we realize that many complaints are just laments that things are not better.

One of the most common causes of complaint is annoyance. We all get annoyed, even infants. Think of your reaction when suddenly a baby starts wailing while you are delayed in a grocery store line or a medical office waiting room. “Thank you,” you mumble, “I was just about to say the same thing.”

Complaints can also stem from misunderstanding, embarrassment, pettiness, pride, aggravation, and, sometimes, simply mean-spiritedness.

A word similar to complaint is compliant. We don’t like to be simply compliant, but how do you think complaint can become a more positive dynamic in certain circumstances?

2

Complaints Are Common

Why get annoyed to the point of complaining? It’s because something isn’t right, and I cannot rectify it outright. For any variety of reasons, a direct confrontation isn’t possible. I’m not the right person; it’s not the right time or place; perhaps I’m not even sure of the motivations for this “wrong” that needs “righting.” In any case, a complaint seems to be the best weapon of righteousness available to me.

These samples from convent life can illustrate what I mean.

A complaint could be a snide, indirect response to someone’s overzealous comment about my food consumption.

Her: “Why are you always eating donuts? You shouldn’t eat them, especially those fancy ones!”

Me: “Not to worry! I know a plain donut is better for you than a frosted one—so I licked all of the chocolate off before I ate it.”

Translation: Stop harassing me about my health!

Some complaints are just meant to be entertaining (hopefully) as this one from Sister Carmela, a notoriously creative person and plain-spoken individual: “The Church should change the prayer for the dead. How can they enjoy eternal rest if a perpetual light is on?”

Here’s another example of a common complaint: “Why don’t you affirm me more?”

Once a sister complained like this to Mother Thecla Merlo, the co-foundress of the Daughters of Saint Paul, my religious congregation. “Mother,” she said, “Why do you only see and correct the wrong things that I do? You never tell me how well I am doing.” Mother Thecla replied: “God sees and rewards what we do well, but my job is to help you become better.”

How often do we complain because others are doing their duty?

Not all complaints are negative, and they can appear in various forms, such as statements, questions, or recommendations. We’ve all heard this one: “If you’re cold, put on a sweater.” There’s also this one: “Wasn’t it cold in the house this morning!” Or this one: “What’s the use of a furnace if we never turn it on?”

Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman explains:

It is the characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing judgment on the things which come before us. No sooner do we apprehend than we judge: we allow nothing to stand by itself: we compare, contrast, abstract, generalize, connect, adjust, classify: and we view all our knowledge in the associations with which these processes have invested it.3

Newman is referencing our natural thought processes. Do we also have a natural responsibility to channel our thoughts so that the outcome will be realistic and genuine?