The Solemnity of All Saints is a day to remember all those souls who lived lives of holiness and are now enjoying the Beatific Vision in heaven – whether they’re recognized by the Church or not. But it’s also a good day to reflect on the universal call to holiness – the call of each one of us to strive for sanctity in our own lives.
Because of some problems I’ve been having recently balancing time spent in prayer and time focused on the pro-life work that I (try to) do, my spiritual director had to again remind me that “without regular time for prayer you risk becoming ‘just an activist’ – we should want to be saints first.”
It is easy to get so swept up into activism (esp. when the stakes are so high!) that the time we spend concentrating on our own interior life can begin to deteriorate. But, if evangelization is our goal, as it should be, the only way to achieve real, lasting change is by taking our own conversion seriously first. When we seek first for ourselves the interior peace of the Gospels then we can more effectively communicate that peace to others.
[O]nly this peace of heart truly liberates us from ourselves, increases our sensitivity to others and renders us available to our fellow man…Acquiring and maintaining interior peace, which is impossible without prayer, should consequently be considered a priority for everybody, above all for those who claim to want to do good for their neighbor. Otherwise, more often than not they would simply be communicating their own restlessness and distress. (Fr. Jaques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace, p. 7, 8 )
This doesn’t mean we have to wait until we are totally purified to raise our voices in defense of the truth, but we must be careful not to let our activism draw us away from a life of prayer and peace in our own hearts. Even the greatest saints who performed the greatest acts of charity and had the greatest influence in their time were only able to do so by the grace of God because they had a firm commitment to their own personal sanctity, which was cultivated by regular time spent alone in conversation and love with the Almighty.
“Acquire interior peace and a multitude will find its salvation through you” -St. Seraphim of Sarov
2 Comments on “Sanctity, Prayer and Activism”
Chelsea,
In light of your beautiful reflection, I’d like to recommend a brief but excellent gem of spiritual reading entitled They Speak By Silences by Dom Augustin Guillerand, a French Carthusian monk. I read it recently and it is magnificent.
Continued blessings upon you and thank you for your words of wisdom.
Robert
(I’m posting this at various disability-related blogs where I can’t find contact details for the authors. Since you have a pro-life focus I thought this might interest you.)
I thought you might be interested in this case from the UK, of a child whose mother and doctors (but happily not his father) thinks he might be better off dead because he’s visually impaired and paralysed. The dad has a video showing him playing with his toys and says he enjoys being read to. He’s not brain damaged. His father is taking the hospital to court to stop them turning off his life support. (Here is a UK Press Association update; apparently he could breathe without the ventilator with a tracheostomy and go home, but even if he needed a vent, surely it wouldn’t justify turning it off.)