Married Saints?

[Annie12]

Thoughts? It does seem strange how imbalanced it is between Married and non-married saints. Do you think this could be because it is harder to got straight to heaven (without purgatory) upon death if one is married? Is it a harder vocation? I am eager to hear your thoughts on this.

 

http://www.americancatholic.org/messenger/Nov2009/Editorial.asp

[Maggyie]

I've always loved my patroness St Margaret of Scotland, because she founded no religious order, died of natural causes, but was simply an exemplary wife and mother! She was also a queen, however, and that's probably how she gained recognition.

I think part of it is that married life is less conspicuously extraordinary - married Christians are almost like private citizens and priests and religious like generals or public officials. Another part is that we associate sainthood with perfection - and married people are usually friends and neighbors who we know all too well aren't perfect. Whereas we put consecrated persons on a pedestal which gives them a head start when it comes to being beatified. This is an impossible standard of course for anyone.

And the last part is I don't think the " universal call to holiness" has sunk all the way in yet - that lay, un consecrated people truly are meant to be extraordinarily holy. Almost a sense that if a layman loved God wouldn't he go all the way and become a priest? Etc. without acknowledging that being a layman really is going all the way in serving God for many souls.

[Annie12]

I think you have many wonderful points! This helps quite a bit.

 

Do you think that people like St. Therese's Parents are common? They were quite holly people (and I love the example the set for all Christians). Is this the standard that should be held for married Christians?

[Basilisa Marie]

I really like Maggie's post. :) 

 

I think that's just a product of thinking that 1) the world is bad and if you hang out in it too long the badness will rub off on you and 2) religious and priests are just soooo much holier than others because they're professional Jesus Freaks. When really, the more priests I meet, the more I'm convinced that it's probably harder for them to be truly holy than most others. They're entrusted with great responsibility, so they have plenty of extra ways to fail and fall to temptation to vice, on top of the other normal human ones. And I think people really underestimate how challenging it can be to live in community, and how extraordinary St. Therese's Little Way really is. 

 

But that's why I like Maggie's post. When we look at our history, we look at it not through the omniscience lens of unbiased truth - we can't see everything, and we can't be unbiased. Instead, we understand it through the lens of "Great Men" - the idea that some people are really exceptional and stand out, and through telling their stories do we get the bigger story of history. The same thing applies to saints. Saints are our "great men (and women)" of history, so we're more likely to make people saints if they were public figures. I mean, the only reason why Monica is a saint is because Augustine wrote about her, and Augustine was made a saint.  Nobody would have known about her today if he hadn't talked about her in his writings. She was certainly a saint, and would be in heaven, but I don't think anyone would venerate her by name. 

 

So I think this is a case where it's not necessarily that married lay people are less holy or have a harder time becoming saints than religious or priests, it's more that we just don't hear about them. Plus there are more lay people than priests or religious.  A deeper understanding of the universal call to holiness would help create more lay saints, and also create more recognition for those lay saints in the Church's official capacity. 

[Basilisa Marie]

Also - I'd be wary of setting one married couple as a standard for holiness. It's not like we say that St. Francis is the standard of holiness for monks, or St. John Vianney is the standard of holiness for priests. :) 

[Annie12]

Also - I'd be wary of setting one married couple as a standard for holiness. It's not like we say that St. Francis is the standard of holiness for monks, or St. John Vianney is the standard of holiness for priests. :)

 

Woops, Good call! Sorry about that. I guess I was just saying I really love St. Therese's parents. Haha!

 

I guess I don't live in a place where I see many married couples. A lot of the people at my parish are widows. And, the married people I do see I don't really know that well. My parents are good Catholics. But, I guess I was wondering if  heroic virtue is as common in married life as in other walks of life. Isn't it easier for married people to fall into the snares of the world easier than a religious who isn't surrounded by the world a much?

[josephine]

Good points raised!

 

I also think it has to do with the very simple fact that a monastery has the time and administration for a canonisation proces.

i mean, those are very time consuming. it can easily take decades!

[Maggyie]

Woops, Good call! Sorry about that. I guess I was just saying I really love St. Therese's parents. Haha!

I guess I don't live in a place where I see many married couples. A lot of the people at my parish are widows. And, the married people I do see I don't really know that well. My parents are good Catholics. But, I guess I was wondering if heroic virtue is as common in married life as in other walks of life. Isn't it easier for married people to fall into the snares of the world easier than a religious who isn't surrounded by the world a much?

Annie I have nontraditional ideas on this topic, so dismiss me accordingly. But the old fashioned terminology of being in the world vs out of it seems silly to me. This side of heaven we are all in the world! The friary or convent does not have a force field that keeps out sin. If only it did.

Keep in mind the church does teach that consecrated or ordained life most closely resembles heaven, so all things being equal, it should be easier to be holy in that state of life.

But things aren't equal - it comes down to the individual soul! If someone who should not have been a priest winds up in the priesthood, for instance, they can put their salvation in jeopardy let alone achieving canonized sainthood (I'm referring to men who really were unsuited and became rotten apples). Basilisa makes a great point that ministry is fraught with challenges just as marriage is. It requires supernatural grace to live a supernatural vocation. Thank God that he is very very generous with his graces and we have a wonderful holy father, good religious in our dioceses etc. What would we do without our priests?

I hope I'm not talking it down, not my intention at all. I just think a lot of the traditional understanding of vocations is harmful.

[Basilisa Marie]

Woops, Good call! Sorry about that. I guess I was just saying I really love St. Therese's parents. Haha!

 

I guess I don't live in a place where I see many married couples. A lot of the people at my parish are widows. And, the married people I do see I don't really know that well. My parents are good Catholics. But, I guess I was wondering if  heroic virtue is as common in married life as in other walks of life. Isn't it easier for married people to fall into the snares of the world easier than a religious who isn't surrounded by the world a much?

 

Lol it's all good. :) 

 

Well, in certain capacities, yes, I think so, if you're looking at the situation like a scientist or philosopher. The rules surrounding the priesthood and religious life are more numerous than those who are married, so if you just follow all the rules you can avoid a lot of problems. There aren't as many rules for lay people, so in theory that opens up more possibilities to stray (again, assuming that you would follow the rules perfectly if you had them). And priests and religious are removed from the community in some capacity, so theoretically they wouldn't have as many opportunities to sin - again, assuming they're following all the rules perfectly. 

 

But when you stop looking at the situation like a scientist, as if human behavior (and sin) were some kind of equation, we realize that humans are subject to temptation and vice regardless of whatever rules they've agreed to follow. A priest may have just as many opportunities to fall into mortal sin as a layman - as we're all painfully aware. And at the same time, I believe a person can be unholy without ever having committed a mortal sin. A life full of venial sin is still a life full of sin. So even if the nun is enclosed away from the world, she can still nurture all of the seven deadly sins in her heart. Living away from the world with a particular community doesn't necessarily make it harder to sin, it just means that there are different opportunities to sin.  

So basically, I think that you're right, but in a limited way. When you start talking about humans and our experiences things stop fitting in nice little logical boxes fairly quickly. :) 

[PhuturePriest]

Because there is a weird phenomenon with laypeople not being recognized as Saints, there is actually a huge book that lists all of the lay Saints. There's a lot more than you think, but they just aren't talked about very often because they didn't do particularly extraordinary things.

 

Also, as was said before, they just aren't in the public eye. Nowadays, laypeople are in the public eye a whole lot more. We have lay Catholic apologists all over the place, speaking all over the world. That really is a brand-new concept, and by "brand-new" I mean it didn't exist forty years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if in our lifetimes we got to see these people become Servants of God, Blesseds, and maybe even canonized Saints. For the past two thousand years, however, the teachers have always been the clergy and religious. They've always been the focus of the public eye, and thus they are the ones who are easily followed in their lives and get canonized.

[MithLuin]

As Josephine points out, the process of opening a cause for sainthood, doing all the research, collecting the documents, being in contact with Rome, promoting the legacy of the person after they are gone - this is much more easily done for a public figure who was part of a religious community.  Much less common that someone will go to all that work for Grandma, even though everyone knows she was a wonderfully and saintly person.  

 

St. Margaret of Scotland was a queen, and so a public figure.  Many saints who were not members of religious communities were members of royalty (or both ;)).  A simple, ordinary, holy couple is unlikely to be considered for 'official' sainthood because who would do that?  St. Therese's parents were, of course....St. Therese's parents.  Still, that's the closest we get to 'ordinary' married couples being seen as officially recognized saints.  

[LouisvilleFan]

Thoughts? It does seem strange how imbalanced it is between Married and non-married saints. Do you think this could be because it is harder to got straight to heaven (without purgatory) upon death if one is married? Is it a harder vocation? I am eager to hear your thoughts on this.

 

http://www.americancatholic.org/messenger/Nov2009/Editorial.asp

 

For what it's worth, canonization is simply the Church declaring a person is in Heaven. Whether any purgation was necessary is beside the point.

 

I think a big part of it is due to the attention that priests and religious attain within Church life, which lends itself to the greater possibility of a cause being opened for them after their death. Married and single people don't tend to garner much attention, yet there are surely many thousands of them who are just as much saints as those we venerate.

 

There are a few exceptions. Blessed Frassati is one of my favorites. St. Louis IX is another one, after whom St. Louis the city, St. Louis cathedral in New Orleans, and several other places are named.

[Era Might]

Married people generally lead boring lives. Nobody wants to read about St. Allan the data entry clerk with a 401k.

[Credo in Deum]

Married people generally lead boring lives. Nobody wants to read about St. Allan the data entry clerk with a 401k.

 

I guess this depends on the person, since some religious might find married life very fun and exciting. :)  

 

I think another reason for why there appears to be more Saints from religious vocations is because most of them have a better line of communication with Church officials.  Maybe the reason why we have so few married saints is because so few of the laity are speaking up for the laity?  

[CatherineM]

Catherine Doughtery, the founder of Madonna House, is being put forward. I think she's at the servant of God stage. Anyway, not only was she married, she had an annulment of her first marriage. I wonder if she makes it, will she be the first with one?

[fides' Jack]

I always hesitate and cringe when I hear somebody saying something like "traditional thinking is harmful".  Especially in a matter like this.  This is what all of life is about - to know, love, and serve God - aka: to be holy.

 

I think we are so far out of touch with what real holiness is that we have a hard time accepting what it really takes to be holy, because we don't want to change ourselves.  Has anyone ever read/studied The Interior Castle?  It is much easier for someone who devotes their life to God to attain true holiness.  I'm sure a lot of this fact has to do with prayer.  A lot of good people pray every day.  But truly holy people pray every minute of every day.  So yes, religious have a head start on being holy.  Secular priests to a lesser extent.  And lay people to a lesser extent still.

 

"In the world, but not of the world" is indeed a real barrier, but most people don't understand where the difference lies, because they're so much "of the world" that they can't see it.

 

Everyone sins - but holiness is not just a lack of sin.

[Maggyie]

Well I think that's the crux of it. The traditional thinking is that married people (or single people with careers etc) can not possibly devote their lives fully to God because they have other stuff going on. The Church recognizes now that this isn't true.

In fact most religious don't spend every minute of every day in prayer, except by making their work their prayer - which is exactly what each and every Christian is called to do!

Unfortunately this understanding of the universal call to holiness has not really filtered down. Consecrated life of whatever type is objectively superior because it is a more perfect image of the future of humanity's relationship with God, not because it has special holiness levels that can only be unlocked that way (to use video game terminology lol). It does have special graces but so does every vocation. The traditional understanding has led to a lot of suffering at the hands of priests especially who did not belong in the priesthood.

[Credo in Deum]

The problem could also be the chaotic lives most married people live or are subjected to.   I think one thing that benefited the saints enormously was the existence of a Rule.  Living by -and being devoted to- a Rule is a very difficult thing.  This is because it constantly gives you the opportunity to daily carry your cross and sacrifice your will.  Yet, this sacrificing of the will is always a good thing, since self-will is the biggest obstacle to humility and growth in holiness.

 

I think it would be a great idea for married couples to sit down with their priest/spiritual director, and try to setup a realistic Rule for their family.  Maybe revisit the Rule during certain milestones, so the family can apply certain changes which correspond to their situation?  Maybe start off slowly with a set time for the family rosary, spiritual reading, etc?

[fides' Jack]

Maggie, I really disagree.  Whatever problems exist with priests who didn't belong in the priesthood should not be pointed toward your idea of traditional understanding as a cause.  That's simply ludicrous and there's no evidence to support that claim.

 

You seem to disagree with yourself - on one hand you ridicule the "traditional thinking" that married people can't devote their lives fully to God (or not as fully as a religious person), and then you continue on to state that religious life is indeed objectively superior to the married life.  I'm glad you can recognize that it is, in fact, superior, even if you can only give 1 of the reasons that make it so.  If anything, the Church acknowledges that the "traditional thinking" on the matter is correct - and this can be demonstrated with Scripture (in several places) or any of a number of Church documents.

 

The Interior Castle was written as a perspective of how we can view the path to holiness.  The Dark Night of the Soul/Ascent of Mt. Carmel was another perspective - about the same path to holiness.  These were written by saints who understood better than we do what holiness is all about, and they should not be trivialized by comparing them to video games.

[Maggyie]

Oh come now. What did Teresa say about solemn saints? ;)

I write from personal experience because I have seen it happen! Not sure how much you got into "discernment world" prior to marriage but it's not unusual for someone with no religious vocation to want it so badly (because they erroneously have absorbed the belief that this is the only way to exceptional holiness) and shipwreck themselves in the process. And maybe take some souls down with them too. On Vocation Station they can confirm this.

It's not a contradiction at all. Think of a big cup and a little cup. Does the big cup hold more water than the little one when both are filled to the brim? Yes. Objectively so. But nevertheless both cups are equally full. So it is with vocations. The understanding common in eras past that the "fullness" or "holiness" of the little cup was "less than" or limited in some way is soundly rejected by the Church. The potential for holiness of a married person or single person is absolutely unlimited just as it is for a consecrated person.