THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE SAINTS
"In our communion with them, you give us their friendship."
(from the Preface to the Feasts of the Saints)0ne of the most ancient and powerful images of Christ and God-as-mother comes from the medieval legend of the Mother Pelican feeding three or four little chicks. People in the middle ages believed that the mother pelican would split open her side and feed her babies with her own blood if her chicks were in danger of starving to death. This image was usually portrayed in medallion or circular form--in marble, mosaic, painting, carved wood, stained and painted glass--in churches and cathedrals throughout the world. Of course, this is legend; there is no recorded incident of any pelican ever behaving this way. But is it untrue?
It does graphically represent the "awful" feeding from the side of the crucified Lord, and it also conveys the "awful" primitive and passionate aspect of the blindly selfless mother. I would have been content to present this legend as strong myth, because the image is evocative enough to stand alone, but recently this item appeared in New York Newsday, from the Associated Press:
"YEREVAN, USSR - A woman buried alive in the Armenian earthquake helped keep her 3-year-old child alive by feeding it her own blood during the eight days they were entombed, a health official said yesterday.
The 30-year-old mother apparently punctured each of her fingers repeatedly and had the child suck on them as a source of nourishment, said Dr. Ophelia Nazaryan, the head of a children's hospital in Yerevan."This account is something like the "yes and no" of the truth of the legends of the saints.
The word "hagiography" is often used to describe the biography of the saints, but more often than not it is used to dismiss the overly glorified legends of the saints. For centuries these stories were told to inspire people to become "Christs-in-their-time" by accenting the almost visible spark of divinity so transparent in the saints.
For centuries the legends were also used in psychically violent ways to enslave people--to "lord it over them," emphasizing the "letter" of the legend rather than the breath of spirit. Saints became literal giants of virtue: unapproachable and impossible to follow. One was to copy their lives or legends in a fundamentalist way, point by point, renouncing the responsibility of one's own "still small voice" and the long continued struggle towards vocation.
This imitation is something, ironically, the saints could never do, though most of them seem to have gone through a painful stage of trying to mimic someone else. For some, this external way led to near despair and thoughts of suicide. Gradually, however, as the person was led by God, his or her relationship to the saints in heaven became more comforting; it was a contact with the familiar, a consolation in solitude.
Part of the rejection of hagiography is justified, coming from the obvious distortion of the legends; part also comes from a modern suspicion that there is no truth in the lives of some saints. A contemporary writer of biography, W.W. Bartley, expresses this skeptical attitude: "When in doubt about the merits of some particular idea, theory, proposal, or whatever, first determine if it is scientific. If it is, classify it as legitimate; if it is not, reject it." This scientific testing is essential, but it cannot be used exclusively.
Our Lady and the Holy Child Apprear to St. Ignatius the ConvalescentAnother approach to these legends comes from the methods of the followers of psychologist Carl Jung. The Jungians show a great appreciation for the lives of the saints, but at times their method unconsciously (!) diffuses the legend of its fire--something Jung himself would never have dared.
I found a better image of the saints hiding behind a tree, as it were, in the writings of Flannery O'Connor, that genius of vivid symbol and grotesque caricature whom Fr. John Walsh introduced us to in the novitiate. In novels like Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away, troubled street preachers and travelers seek their destiny in actions as exaggerated as they are intense.
Never would you question the truth of O'Connor's stories, nor would you demand (since they are not purported histories) that they be factual; at the same time, they never leave you unscathed.
Like Flannery O'Connor's stories, the faults of the saints can be perceived as "writ large"-even in hagiography-as are their virtues. Saints seem incapable of just registering "normal." They appear at times off balance, tilting and reeling; cartoonish in their behavior; fearful in their descents and awesome in their transcendence. The saints are truly foolish and "clumsy" as Adrienne von Speyr says of Ignatius' growing pains.
This is really our point of contact with them. In our willingness to see their faults, without denial, we become open to the possibility of friendship and a mutual honesty. And "in fact" don't we often meet the foolish and transcendent daily in one another?
One of the prefaces for the feasts of the saints says, "In our communion with them, you give us their friendship." This actual companionship within the kingdom is available to everyone, and it is not extraordinary. The great gift of the saints is they each bring something. They offer their lives as wells of nourishment, as complete circles of schools of prayer. They are like our true friends on earth in many ways. They are filled with love; they love to be with us; they love to love us. They exact no pound of flesh. They are broken masters and guides of the many ways to God. In the words of the deceased scripture scholar, G.B. Caird: "The only requirement for the kingdom of God, is an emptiness only God can fill."
Jesuit Bulletin, Spring 1989, p. 3-5.
Jesuit Bulletin, Spring 1989, p. 3-5.
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Page Last Updated: October 6, 2001
