"We cannot become saints merely by trying to run away from material things.
To have a spiritual life is to have a life that is spiritual in all its wholeness -
a life in which the actions of the body are holy because of the soul,
and the soul is holy because of God dwelling and acting in it...
The saint, therefore, is sanctified not only by fasting when he should fast
but also by eating when he should eat.
He is not only sanctified by his prayers in the darkness of the night,
but by the sleep that he takes in obedience to God, Who made us what we are."
- Thomas Merton, in No Man is an Island
Thomas Merton is a recent favorite of mine. I know some people are a little bothered by Merton for various reasons, and to be honest, that always made me a bit uneasy about reading his works - but curiosity finally got the better of me, and I started reading No Man is an Island. It's a great book (admittedly, I'm not done with it yet), and I think Merton's spiritual wisdom shines in its pages. Hope, prayer, conscience, intention, suffering, sacrifice, vocation... he covers it all.
The passage above holds great meaning for me, and I would think, for most of us living in the world today. To some extent, our view of sainthood and holiness is bound up to some extent in the idea that, to achieve such a goal, we have to strip ourselves of absolutely everything, and become perfectly ascetic. And of course, there are plenty of saints who speak to this example - and I am not trying to say we should not follow their example - but I think Merton makes excellent points here, too.
"We cannot become saints merely by trying to run away from material things." Though we should work to be unattached to material things, there is more to our spiritual lives than just that - ultimately, as Merton says, we learn holiness by obedience to God - eating and sleeping as he created us to do. And, since the majority of us are not called to be hermits, or to live in a cloister, we also do all these things in the world - where others can see us. The best witness we can give to others is the way we live our lives in obedience to God. In living our lives in this obedience, we are sanctified... and in observing the way we live, others may come to believe and be sanctified, as well.
We don't live in a vacuum. We can't live in a vacuum if we are to "proclaim the Gospel to every creature," as was read from St. Mark's gospel at Mass today. We have to be willing to be "out there," in the world - after all, God made us social creatures for a reason. ;-) Something worth considering a bit more today - the feast of St. Mark the evangelist, author of the first gospel - a man who was obviously of saint-grade holiness, but who also took the Word out to the world.
Besides, life in a vacuum would suck.
+Peace, and all good!
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