Failure, more than success, accompanies holiness of life. This is not an absolute rule. We pray that our efforts be blessed with success and we give thanks when that happens. But we do expect the worse. We prepare to fall forward, like Jesus did three times climbing Calvary. We welcome failure. For every good work we do that is successful, we may suffer three or four or perhaps ten or twenty failures.
An analogue of this is the "Law of Inverted Consequences" I unveiled in my own UPS supervisor career. When I worked the hardest, everything went wrong; when things went very well, I was exerting little effort. I found this also in teaching: one year I had a class that was complete chaos; the very next period I welcomed a class that was something close to paradise. I was the same teacher. There are always forces around us, far superior to us, good and bad, and we are victims or beneficiaries, but we are NOT in control. You can see why I loved the first of the 12 steps: "Admitted that we were powerless over.....that our lives had become unmanageable." Yes, much of my life has been the anguish of powerlessness. So happy that there is a second step: "Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."
The core of life in Christ is not success, but fruitfulness. This is something entirely different. It is not the result of our intention, initiative, efforts, industry. It is something mysterious, above and beyond us, whereby God uses our faith, hope, love, suffering, efforts, patience and hope to bring forth entirely unanticipated fruits for others, fruits of joy, peace, healing, happiness and holiness. The saint is not one who succeeds. The saint is one who fails, and in those failures God brings forth fruit.
My favorites:
St. Charles de Foucauld. In the canon of saints, he is the most fascinating; the most successful; and the biggest failure. He started off as an overweight, lazy, indulged, decadent rich kid. He spent his immense inheritance so recklessly that his family sued in court before the entire thing was depleted. He lost his Catholic faith. Then he served in the Foreign Legion in the Sahara where he distinguished himself as a military genius of extraordinary courage and intelligence. He was a national hero. Then he developed an interest in the people of the Sahara so, disguised as a Russian Rabbi, he traveled where no European had ever been, taking meticulous anthropological notes, which he published as a groundbreaking masterpiece. Again he was a national hero. His saintly cousin, Marie de Bondy, loved him dearly and prayed for him ardently. She suggested he see the holy Father Huvelin. Suddenly he found himself confessing his sins and undergoing a extreme, I would even say violent conversion. He ambitioned radical imitation of Christ. He found the most difficult monastery of the most demanding order (Carthusians) in the world and found it too soft. He found a humble spot as servant to a convent of nuns in the Holy Land. But eventually he was ordained a priest and set off to the Sahara to serve these people he loved so, to convert them to Christ, and start an order to follow in his path. There he again became a celebrity: remembered still for his military prowess but even more for his radical poverty, holiness and charity. Has anyone achieved such success in such diverse areas? But in his two defining goals, he failed miserably. Despite years of toil, he gained not a single convert nor a single recruit. No one! He was murdered by a group of desert Bedouins. A failure in what mattered to him. But he had kept a journal. This was read and went "viral", eventually bringing to life a number of religious orders and inspiring Kiko Arguello in his own submergence in the Gypsy community and founding of the Neocatechumenal Way. Success, Failure...and Fruitfulness.
Dorothy Day. Arguably the most influential American Catholic of the 20th century, she had one daughter, Tamar, out of wedlock, who herself had eight children with a husband who eventually surrendered to alcoholism. The heartrending biography, Saved by Beauty, by her granddaughter Kate Hennessey relates the close, but painful relationship between Dorothy and Tamar, and most sadly, the rejection by Tamar and virtually all of her children of the Catholic faith so dear to Dorothy. As a Catholic parent myself, nothing matters to me like the acceptance of my faith by my children and then by theirs. I can hardly imagine the sadness of this holy woman in her failure to pass on her faith. A life successful in so many dimensions; and fruitful as well; but a failure in what surely mattered to her most.
Elizabeth Leseur. This humble, holy woman was deeply devoted to her husband, a passionate atheist. She lived her Catholic faith quietly, anonymously, in a thoroughly bourgeois, atheist environment. She never preached or argued. But, especially in her later, sick years, she was much loved by those who would visit her for counsel and comfort. She died alone in her faith, her husband still unbelieving. When he, however, read in her memoirs of her love for him and her anguish that he come to faith he had a powerful conversion. He became a priest and spent a long life spreading her writing and life example. Again, failure in this life; fruitfulness in the aftermath.
Jeanne Jugan. Moved by the sight of a blind, homeless woman in the cold, Jeanne carried her into her own bed and cared for her. This was the beginning of the Little Sisters of the Poor, whose mission is to care for the poor, elderly and dying. Her work spread and flourished. But a hostile priest took charge and banished her as an unknown to a convent. There she lived anonymously, humbly for another 27 years. Her fellow sisters had no idea that she was the foundress of their work. She received no credit, but imagine her joy in observing the fruitfulness of her fidelity to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit!
Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete. Priest-celebrity, speaker, writer, spiritual leader, hilarious entertainer, this marvelous man spent the last years of his life in anonymity, caring for his disabled brother. Startling humility! Breath-taking renunciation of fame for service of the very least!
Saint Mark Tianxiang. An esteemed doctor, father of a large family, and lay leader, Mark became addicted to opium after being prescribed it for pain. He died as an addict. He was martyred in the Chinese Boxer Rebellion but never conquered his addiction. He might be the patron saint of so many who strive for virtue and holiness but are overcome by addiction.
Brennan Manning. He was more of a failure than Saint Mark. Gifted preacher, writer, spiritual guide he died in his addiction and of his alcoholism due to damage to his brain. He left his Franciscan priesthood and the Church; married; divorced; continued to preach, with much fruit, about God's unconditional love for us. He touched many souls, in the Catholic charismatic renewal and later among Evangelicals and Pentecostals. Even toward the end of his life, he would preach a powerful retreat; go on a four-day bender; and then fly across the country to preach another powerful retreat. He was a catastrophe as an alcoholic. But he persevered in proclaiming God's love. He was buried in St. Rose Catholic Church in Belmar NJ.
There are so many others. Some, notably Saint Alphonsus Liquori, resemble Jeanne Jugan in being removed as heads of orders they founded. Many simply died young, bereft of accomplishments: St. Maria Gioretti, Saints Francisco and Jacinta of Fatima, Carlo Acutis, Pier Giorgio Frassti, and even the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem. Always: lack of success, failure, fruitfulness.
Lastly, for a change of pace, lets consider a secular analogue. Sully, placed by Paul Newman at his best, in Nobody's Fool, is a failure of a middle-aged man: drunkard, penniless, renting a room, estranged from family, feuding endlessly with a local. He has nothing to show for his life. Yet, there is a humility about him. A quiet serentiy! He seems at peace with himself. He befriends, chastely and charitably, the sexy wife of his antagonist, played by Melanie Griffith. He reconciles with his family. He somehow exudes something like wisdom. He is the secular analogue, however flawed, as the unsuccessful but humble and fruitful saint.
May God bless our endeavors with success, also with failure, but always with humility, gratitude and fruitfulness!
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