From: stabosz@chopin.udel.edu (Rae Stabosz)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Re: Nature of List--Fossil
Date: 10 Nov 92 23:51:32 GMT
Organization: University of Delaware

In article <CATHOLIC%92110516241927@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU> Jim McIntosh <JIM@AMERICAN.EDU> writes:
>
>Gosh, Brian, I see it everywhere I look. I see people re-energized and
>working at bringing about the Kingdom. I see lively and engaging
>liturgies, with people bursting out with the power of the Spirit. I see
>people dedicating themselves to working with the outcasts and the poor,
>both in the US and in the missions. I see a recommitment to gospel
>values, and an opening to and an appreciation of other Christians. I see
>people taking joy in discovering the Scriptures, and a new dedication to
>living the Gospels. I see new lines of communication opening between the
>leaders in the church and those who they serve. I see more of a fraternal
>and communal attitude every day. I see an involved church, a church
>celebrating all of its members -- a church filled with love. These are
>all signs of the Spirit working powerfully in the church.
>
>Jim McIntosh, SFO (jim@american.edu)
>The American University
>Washington DC 20016-8019 USA

*****

I don't see the saints.  If this is a re-energized, lively Church with
people bursting out with the power of the Spirit, I want to see some
saints.  Really.  Saints like Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna,
Francis of Assisi, Therese of Lisieux, Thomas Aquinas, Dominic, Louis
de Montfort... I want to see real, living, holy men and women whose
lives don't just transform a few -- those whose political or social
or economic or theological views are compatible -- but saints whose
lives are transformational for Catholic and non-Catholics alike,
drawing them towards the joy of the gospel, urging them to die to
self and follow Jesus.

I see Mother Teresa.  She's the closest I see to a "saint of yore".
If this Church you see, Jim, is so wonderful, where are the saints?
And please don't tell me, "You and I are the saints..." yes, someday
perhaps, but saints light up the sky in a way that I don't, in a way
that I don't see around me in this Church that has changed with the
times.  I will believe that the Church of the past is dead and gone,
and that this new Church is wonderfully adapted to the modern times,
when I see it produce saints like the Church of the past produced.

Hmmm... I think the above sounds polemical.  I really don't mean it
to be.  I would really like to know, Jim, what you make of this
seeming lack of saints today.  Do you think that the people I named
above are not so much different from your average enthusiastic
and well-meaning Catholic in today's Church?  Do you assume that I
have a superstitious or ingenuous or overly pious view of sainthood?
I know plenty of "good" men and women, from all walks of life, but
their words don't set me on fire like when I read the writings of
some of those I mentioned above.  

It makes me think, actually, that there is much talk of joy but not
much of holiness.  I remember saying once, about 10 years ago, in the
CCD office where a priest I loved dearly was Director of Education,
that I wanted to be a saint.  He laughed at me, and his assistant
said "Saints are not all they are cracked up to be."  But I meant 
it sincerely, and here is the thing... when I look at who it is who
is helpful and useful and believes me when I say I want to be a saint,
it is those "old fogeys" and "fossils" who look back fondly at the
Church of the past.  Truthfully, I have never had anyone who is
enamoured of the "new, improved, changing-with-the-times" Church
say anything about my wish to become a saint except to be embarrassed.

I'm a child of the 60's.  In college I joined SDS, did a lot of drugs,
thankfully missed out on the "free sex" due to being married to a young
man who had wanted to become a Trappist before I met him (the sweet Merton
influence!), and I gleefully watched as the post-Vatican Church swept
all the old-fashioned stuff right out the door.  Now, true, it swept
me out with it -- who needed to be Catholic when one could be a hippie?
What need of the communion of saints when one had the commune?  

I am raising seven children and I find that this brave new catholic
church is NOT getting through to them.  You know what has started
getting through to them?  I've started telling them the truths I
learned when I was a little kid, when I memorized the Baltimore
Catechism like every good Catholic girl and boy.  The old words
arrest them -- "grace", and "will", and yes "guardian angels",
and "saints", and "heaven, hell and purgatory".  I raised them to
love their neighbors but I didn't give them the words to connect
that love of neighbor to God.  In CCD when I taught, I taught the
kids in my charge, and my own kids, all about how their experiences
of flowers and parties and dinners spoke of the glories of creation
and the hope of the messianic banquet.  But I avoided using the
word "sin" to them, because I was taught that it was a concept that
lead to excessive guilt.  So what happened?  When they discovered,
as Paul did long ago, that they did what they did not want to do,
and could not do the good that they wanted, they fell into despair
because, not understanding their sinful nature, they could not
understand the beauty of forgiveness or the wonderful gift of
salvation, of their God dying on the Cross for them.

I seriously would like to hear from you, Jim, so I can see what
it is that I need to retain from this post-Vatican II Catholic
culture in American, what it is that is good, how it forms saints.
Right now I don't see it.  I once did.  Am I awaking from a dream,
or falling back into one?

Rae