“What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done? Why, when I looked for the crop of grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?”
Last week, the Holy Father made his first Apostolic Journey to France. His visit garnered more attention than most papal journeys given the unique role that France has played in the life of the Church for the past fifteen hundred years. France is known as the Eldest Daughter of Rome because in 496 A.D., the King of the Franks, Clovis – the founder of the kingdom that came to be called France – was baptized and made his kingdom the first to adopt Christianity in union with the Pope in Rome, setting off a special relationship between the papacy and his dynasty that dominated European politics for centuries.
So, France became the eldest daughter of Rome, but closer to our own day, it became the source of the intellectual movements that dethroned Christian faith as the guiding light of the Western world. The French revolution at the end of the 1700s introduced the concept we now know as secularism into the world. The Eldest Daughter of Rome became the chief architect of the dismantling of the Church’s influence in Her historic homelands. The vineyard of the Lord – how could one ignore the obvious connection to France of grapes for making wine? – that produces sour, wild grapes. Is this all that is left of Rome’s eldest daughter, in which only five percent of Catholics attend Mass each Sunday?
That is the story that the world told about France and about the “influence” of the Catholic Church in the West last week. But as more than 80,000 mostly young people filled France’s biggest stadium to see and pray with the Holy Father, the Church in France had a very different story to tell about herself: “if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
The story the Church in France told about herself was the story of her saints, from St. Remi, the bishop who baptized her first king; to St. Louis IX, her holiest monarch; courageous women like St. Joan of Arc; reformers like St. Vincent de Paul; spiritual authors like St. Louis de Montfort; to saints who labored in the smallest and most insignificant towns like Ars or Lisieux, but gained fame the world over, like St. John Mary Vianney and St. Therese the Little Flower. One by one they entered the middle of the arena as their stories were acted out, eventually forming a mass of men and women of all eras, a sign of the real story of the Church.
Friends of mine who speak not a word of French and thus understood little of the narration were still deeply moved watching this presentation of the real life of a Church thought to be in decline, but in fact filled with life and holiness. The story of the saints is the real story of the Church, in which the Christian faith is measured not by those who fail to put it into practice, but in its greatest exemplars, in the lives best lived.
Today we celebrate the eight hundredth anniversary of the death of one of the most beloved saints of all time, St. Francis of Assisi. In founding the biggest family of religious men and women in the Church, the Franciscans, who have educated millions, helped evangelize the Americas, and led some of the most important reforming movements in Church history, Francis’s impact on world history defies measurement. His personal charisma and love for God’s creation continues attracting devotion to this day. (The processional hymn today, connected in theme to the entrance antiphon, was composed by him.)
St. Francis has been unfortunate in one regard, though, to be famous for things he did not and would not have said. (Which I guess puts him in good company since we can say the same thing about Jesus.) Most famously, Francis is misquoted as saying, “Preach the Gospel always, use words when necessary.” There is no record of St. Francis of Assisi ever having said or written this. And furthermore, it is completely inconsistent with a man who just couldn’t stop talking about Jesus!
St. Francis is associated with loving creation because of his famous “sermon to the birds,” in which, after receiving confirmation from trusted advisors that he ought to continue his work of preaching instead of retiring to live as a hermit, he set off and headed towards the nearest village to resume preaching the Gospel – with words! – but when he came across a flock of birds, was so filled with enthusiasm for the Lord, that he exhorted the birds to praise their Creator with their songs. Again, he used words.
To return to the saints of France, the saint whose entrance into that stadium of 80,000 young people brought the greatest cheers was Therese of Lisieux. For those familiar with the Little Flower, as she is known, that’s not too surprising. But from a natural perspective, you wouldn’t expect a young woman to become a worldwide sensation when she didn’t do anything with her life except enter the same cloistered convent as her older sisters in their small and insignificant town (hardly original or daring), attained the exalted status of assistant novice mistress of that small convent (sarcasm intended), and died of TB at age 24.
People love Therese of Lisieux the world over, and frankly, I’ll admit I’m still a bit stumped as to why. But only recently it dawned on me that this incredible young woman, who taught the novices of her convent to do little things with great love – the Little Way for which she was later proclaimed a Doctor of the Church – is a beautiful answer to one of life’s perennially great questions, “Does my life really matter?” To the world, did Therese Martin’s life matter? To secularized, laicite France, did her life matter? But the value of a life is not measured in the greatness of its accomplishments. One life lived with great love deeply matters. One life that inspires love in another deeply matters.
As wrong and cowardly as that misquotation of St. Francis is, people have been attracted to it because it does hint at an important reality: Words without the conviction inspired by a holy life will always fall flat. To steal a line from Bishop Barron: “Preaching is not sharing your opinions on culture or politics, not even offering your point of view on matters spiritual, nor is it talking about Jesus or God or the Church. … You preach [the Gospel] when Jesus has so seized your heart, your mind, your personality that he effectively speaks through you.” That, my brothers and sisters, is a saint. That is who you are called to become!
The saints are saints, though, only in communion. Their lives only make sense and are only possible because of a deep web of communion. There is no St. Augustine without his mother St. Monica, no St. Therese of Lisieux without Ss. Louie and Zelie Martin (her parents), no Clovis, the first Christian king of France, without St. Clotilde, his wife. Think of the Catholic patriarchs and matriarchs whose faith has inspired generations of Catholics here in Allen County, the faith of one man or one woman radiating out not only to hundreds or thousands of descendants, but profoundly nourishing a culture of faith and family that people readily recognize as different and special. But even none of them would be the same person they were and are, and none of their legacies would be what they have come to be, in isolation from each other.
Every life matters, from conception until death, because every life is the fruit of love, uniquely created by God, the source of all life and all love, and the world becomes a more beautiful place with every new life that enters it. Saints without number are waiting to be born, waiting to be formed in the hearts of holy families, waiting to discover the beautiful adventure that is holiness.
The people to whom the vineyard of the Lord will be given, the people who will produce its fruits, are the saints. They are the ones whose hearts, lives, personalities, and whole beings have been seized by Christ, who can make their own those soaring words of St. Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!” Thanks to the saints, we have a very different story to tell about the Church and about the Christian faith than the story told by the world, about France or about us. But whether that story is a story of our past, or of our past, present, and future, hangs on a simple but powerful “yes” to the invitation to be seized and transformed by Christ, to be a saint.
The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson
Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne
XXVII Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXVI
