"God does not ask us to be successful; he asks us to be faithful." St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta
Overrated: Achievement, Success, Competence, Control, Accomplishment
Underrated: Failure, Incompetence, Powerlessness, Weakness
Most of my life I have been accompanied by failure, or more precisely the sense of failure and the fear of failure. It has been a dark cloud, always in the sky, sometimes blocking the sun, sometimes not. It is the demon of discouragement, dispatched from hell to weaken my virility, leave me despondent, feeble, afraid, passive.
For example, my first full-time adult job was teaching religion in St. Mary's H.S. in Jersey City. When I left that job after four years I considered myself a failure. I was at times a weak disciplinarian and lost control of the class. But more importantly, I failed in my mission to share our Catholic faith with my students. There was no real evidence that they received the Joy I was offering. When I look back today with broader perspective I see that my judgment against myself was harsh.
My 25 year career in UPS supervision was a success in that I survived and provided for my family. You see that my bar here is very low. It was a stressful, challenging career with a persistent sense of inadequacy and impending catastrophe. UPS epitomizes control/efficiency, my interior was lack of control and incompetence. I enjoyed lots of relationships. And my abiding sense of powerlessness enhanced my trust in God.
So you will understand that my favorite saints are those who have blatantly failed. We might play a game: I name a saint and you say "success" or "failure," I marvel at those with immense accomplishments, who converted pagans, started religious orders and left hundreds of institutions by the time of death. I cannot identify. My favorites are the ones who most conspicuously fail.
Here is a sampling.
Blessed Maria Teresa Demjanovich
She is my favorite for many reasons: First, she was a Sister of Charity of Convent Station, an order that has always been close to my family and myself. Secondly, she lived in Bayonne, NJ, near our home in Jersey City and where my daughter lives with her family. Third, she lived a short, obscure life (age 26) but left a body of mystical teaching of immense beauty and profundity. Her spiritual director, recognizing her mysticism, had her write reflections which he delivered anonymously to her fellow novices. But most of all, she failed, like myself, as a teacher. After college, before joining the sisters, she taught for a short time in St. Aloysius Academy near where we lived in Jersey City. Apparently, she was ineffective in the work: her students inattentive, out of control and often disrespectful of her. She is dear to my heart. She gets my vote as President of "The Failures Club."
St. Charles de Focauld
He is the greatest failure of all. What a paradox! Everything he did he did BIG! First, he was a rich, indulged, obese, selfish, obnoxious decadent. Suddenly, he went to the Sahara with the Foreign Legion and became a brilliant, heroic, fearless warrior: a premonition of Lawrence of Arabia. Then he travelled the Sahara, pretending to be a Russian Rabbi, and became a world class, ground-breaking anthropologist. Then he had a hardcore conversion to deep Catholicism. He wanted the holiest, hardest life. He found the poorest monastery (Syria) of the hardest order (Carthusian) in the Church, but that was too soft for him. He became a poor, ascetic servant of a convent of Poor Clare's in Israel where the children would taunt him and throw stones at him and he loved it. That wasn't quite hard enough either so he returned to his first love, the Sahara, to bring there the Eucharist Christ, to save souls and to start a group based on his strange charism. Here is where he failed BIG: years of suffering and selfless sacrifice and he had: not a single convert! Not a single follower! One disciple spent some time with him but left as it was impossibly difficult. Charles considered him soft. The man went on to live a long life with the Carthusians, the most demanding lifestyle in the Church. Charles was murdered, alone in the desert. A complete failure in his intended mission. Zero results! But he left a memoir. This memoir has inspired a number of religious orders and the Neocatechumenal Way of Kiko Arguello. He is the Greatest Failure!
Elizabeth Leseur
This lovely, saintly woman had two loves: her Lord Jesus in his Church and her atheist husband. The two did not work together: her husband persisted in disbelief and hatred for the Church. She lived a dissonant, divided life. Her entire social circle was made up of non-believers. Her sacramental life, her faith, was entirely cut off from her ordinary life. She never preached or argued. Silent, patient, modest, she radiated some indescribable charm: everyone loved her. Especially when she was suffering and dying, people would come and talk to her and always go away consoled. After her death, her husband found and read her memoir. He learned how she loved him and yearned agonizingly for his turn to God. He converted. He became a priest and lived a long and fruitful life, sharing her teachings. She is the patron saint of all of us who live among darkness and disbelief and long to radiate the love of Christ.
Dorothy Day
Among the most influential and edifying American Catholics of the 20th century, Day failed as a Catholic mother/grandmother. In the heartbreaking memoir of her granddaughter, Kate Hennessey, Dorothy Day: the World Will be Saved by Beauty, we follow how she failed to pass her faith to her daughter Tamar and nine grandchildren who she adored. Other biographies, mostly by men, chronicle her heroic service of the poor and historic role as social activist. This one is different: a family, a woman's perspective of life up close with an extraordinary woman. Day was fierce, tender and relentless in her love for her own...as she was in all she did. The most anti-bourgeois of Catholics she gave herself entirely to care for the poor in the Catholic Worker, to writing, to social causes including pacifism, anarchism, civil rights an the farm workers union. She engaged intimately with male toxicity: the father of her daughter refused marriage and resisted baptism of their baby. Her daughter's husband and father of the eight was alcoholic and emotionally unhinged. In this darkness, she persisted in her faith and is now being considered for canonization. But her offspring were unable, mysteriously, to catch the faith. It is a great mystery! They seem to be marvelous, lovable, generous people! But not observant of the Catholic faith. What a sadness for Dorothy! She can be the patron saint of all who grieve the loss of faith of family members. I imagine her in heaven, praying for her descendants. I have confidence they will be alright...in the long run.
St. Mark Ji, Unrecovered Drug Addict and Martyr
This might be the most important of all. Highly respected as father of a large family and doctor who cared generously for the poor, he contacted a disease of the stomach which he treated, understandably, with morphine. He developed an addiction he could not break. He persisted in confessing until the priest (lacking, circa 1900, our contemporary understanding of addiction) judged that he lacked firm purpose of amendment and told him not to return to confession until he stopped using drugs. For 30 years he remained in the addiction but came to mass, abstaining from communion, praying for the grace of martyrdom. In the Boxer persecution he was arrested with several members of his family. He was despised by many people as a worthless addict. But he encouraged his family: a grandson asked "Grandfather, where are we going?" to which he responded "to heaven." Despite torture he refused to renounce his faith. He encouraged his children and grandchildren as they were martyred and then was himself killed.
This is an amazing saint. He failed, spectacularly, in his fight with addiction. He died unrecovered, in his addiction. But despite this monumental failing, he persisted in Trust and love for his family. He can be the patron saint of all who are unable to overcome addiction or mental illness or any other affliction. He can be the patron saint of all who love the Eucharist but are unable to receive and remain in their seats at communion, abstaining in humble, quiet reverence. He can be the patron saint of grandfathers. I change my mind, I think he is my favorite saint who failed.
Those Who Fail are Not Failures
Let's reject labels: those who fail are not therefore "failures." That was my fear: that I would be a failure, as a man. That thought is from Satan. Here we must eliminate false binaries: success/failure, winner/loser. All of the above failed, but they failed forward, into the arms of Christ, who has gone before us, falling three times on his way to Calvary.
Jesus ended his earthly life tortured and shamed, apparently a complete "failure." Peter, his number one guy, failed conspicuously, denying him three times and hiding with the others while Jesus was crucified.
Jesus is identified as "Son of David" but let's think about that. The king's greatness is his family lineage which brought us the Christ. But as a father he was a catastrophe: many wives (including Bethseba whose husband he murdered), his sons rebelling against him, raping a half-sister, and killing each other. Most of his descendant kings, including Solomon, turned to the dark side. This is "dysfunctional family on steroids." Yet, out of this series of family debacles God brought forth our salvation!
Fleckinstein Law of Inverted Consequences
My experience of almost 20 years in supervision unveiled the law of inverted consequences: when I was working the very hardest, my results were disastrous; but when I was doing the very minimal, I was being praised by everyone. I don't claim this to be an absolute law. Nor do I conclude that we relax into sloth and quietism and make no efforts in our assignments. But I would suggest this: when you are "succeeding" and getting lots of recognition, do not pat yourself too much on the back because you are not as good as it seems. Contrariwise, if you are "failing" and receiving disdain, do not be too hard on yourself because you are not a "failure."
Fruitful, not Productive
We Americans especially love to be productive, efficient, competent and accomplished. The machine model: we crank out results and tally the total. This implies a certain control, autonomy, and self reliance. This is not the way of the Gospel. Jesus tells us that his works flow from his union with his Father. No autonomy here! He sees us as the branches on the vine: we abide in him and he in us. He assures us that we will do greater works than his. This is crazy! But what he means is not each of us, as isolated agent will do so; but that we as his Body will do greater works. That, to the Catholic mind, makes complete sense.
Our (my wife and my) sublime joy is in our children, their families and that they have received our faith. Were we to count these gratuitous joys as our private "successes" or "achievements" it would be vile arrogance and ingratitude. Only God gives life and faith. They are his gifts. By secondary causality, our faith is received from our Mother the Church, in her fulness. I did not receive my own faith from my parents the way I did my DNA, ethnic identity and good looks (LOL!) I received it from a legion of relatives, teachers, priests and religious, saints and sinners. My children can thank God first and the Church second for their faith.
Lately I love to tell myself: "You are a very small part of a very big, wonderful thing." It is relieving to know that I am only a role player: I don't have a big load to carry. It is proportioned to my size, gifts and liabilities. But it is significant: no one else can do what I am called to do. It is of everlasting value. But it is one piece of a magnificent symphony. My failings and successes are all part of that work of beauty.
Witness of Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln famously failed in a wide range of activities before he became president and plunged us into the greatest catastrophe in our nation's history. He is our best president, not because he won the civil war, certainly not because he created a great nation state, not even because he freed the slaves, but because of his humility, his sense of irony and tragedy, his awareness of human foibles and failure in the light of the infinitely greater power and kindness of Divine Providence.
In this view, our failures are more valuable for us than our successes...if we receive them, both of them, in humility, gratitude, resiliency, hope, and generosity.
Lord Jesus, grant that we may always fail and succeed in the Holy Spirit...in communion with you and our heavenly Father...in union with are brothers and sisters, the weak and the strong...in humility, gratitude, resiliency, hope and generosity. Amen!
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