Robert Ellsberg is editor-in-chief of Orbis Books. He is the author of numerous books, including the best-selling All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time.
Two years ago, Ellsberg spoke to The Social Edge about his book The Saints Guide to Happiness. His new book Blessed Among All Women: Women Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time was just published by the Crossroad Publishing Company. I reached him in New York to speak about the book.
Gerry McCarthy: What sets Blessed Among All Women apart from other books on the saints?
Robert Ellsberg: The Church includes many great women among the official list of saints. I have
included many of them in this book: Monica, Teresa of Avila, Joan of
Arc, Bernadette of Lourdes, Therese of Lisieux. It's pretty obvious,
however, that among the list of canonized saints women represent a
small minority. Whatever the reasons for this, an important factor is
that the process of canonization --like the general exercise of power
in the Church-- is entirely in the hands of men. This affects not only
the selection of saints for canonization, but the interpretation of
their lives. Traditional accounts of women saints tend to emphasize
"feminine virtues" of purity, obedience, patient and endurance. Seldom are women recognized for questioning authority, defying restrictive codes, or courage in determining their own spiritual paths.
I wanted to write a book that didn't just highlight the stories of women (in the spirit of inclusiveness) but that showed the particular challanges they faced to live out their vocation. Often this meant inventing new identities apart from the options available in their time. For some this meant claiming the freedom to remain unmarried. For others: to escape the restrictions of enclosure in a convent, engage in active apostolic work among the poor, or to travel across the world to proclaim the Gospel. Some claimed the authority to interpret scripture in new ways, or simply the right to describe their own experience of God. Others found in Christ a mandate to oppose slavery, war, and social injustice. In time, many of them were honored as "faithful daughters of the Church." But in their lives they often endured opposition or even persecution. Typically holy women have had to contend with male authorities who were eager to inform them that their visions or desires contradicted the will of God.
It is important to remember such stories --not just for women, but for the whole Church. They enlarge our moral imagination and challenge us to respond more faithfully to the ways that God speaks to all of us, and challenges us in our own lives. But the stories of holy women have a special bite to them. So many of them illustrate the words of the angel to Mary: "For with God nothing is impossible."
GM: Why did you choose to write about these women saints, prophets and witnesses under the various Beatitudes?
RE: The Beatitudes are the opening verses in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. They are a distillation of the Gospel message, a guide to qualities of faithful discipleship. The name comes from "Beatus" --the first word in the Latin rendering of these verses: "Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are those who mourn…" Beatus has the double connotation of holiness and happiness, which for me represents the achievement of our true calling as human beings: For this we were created. And yet it strikes me that these qualities are not among the usual criteria for canonization. There is a broad and inclusive quality to the Beatitudes that is consistent with Jesus' emphasis on love, mercy, and forgiveness --and not so much doctrinal orthodoxy-- as the key to salvation. This was significant to me since not all the women I have selected are Catholics, Christians, or otherwise candidates for official canonization.
Of course, there is a somewhat arbitrary effect to assigning women to one category or another --whether "pure of heart," or "peacemakers." Nevertheless, when you read these chapters, which are arranged chronologically, they become a kind of sustained meditation on a theme, and you begin to see a certain family resemblance between, for instance, Florence Nightingale, Corrie Ten Boom, and Mother Teresa ("Blessed are the Merciful"). The same goes for the legendary Lady Godiva, St. Joan of Arc, Sojourner Truth, and Mother Jones (those who "hunger and thirst for righteousness").
GM: In the book you write about the process of officially naming saints. You explain that: "The saints who emerge from this process are depicted as 'perfect people,' free of faults, rough edges, or idiosyncrasies. The resulting impression is that someone is either 'born a saint' or becomes one by suppressing his or her individual personality." This is an impression you want to dispel in the book isn't it?
RE: The presentation of saints as "perfect" people is one of the things that most discourages us from our own call to holiness. I see this more as a process, a journey, a matter of walking the path of holiness. All Christians are called to walk that path --a gradual struggle to "put off the old person and put on Christ." We are never finished along this path. As for those who are called "saints," I want to show that what we call holiness was a quality expressed in the way they lived, in the choices they made, in their struggles to be faithful, even in the face of doubts and disappointments, in their everyday victories over pride and selfishness, in their daily efforts to be more truthful, loving, and brave.
GM: In the book, you write about numerous women who died in Nazi concentration camps. Some of these women include: Etty Hillesum, Anne Frank, and St. Edith Stein. One of the most powerful stories involves Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsie. Before she died in a concentration camp Betsie told her sister Corrie that: "We must tell people what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that he is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been there." Can you talk to me a little bit about Corrie Ten Boom and her life-long witness to God's love?
RE: The extraordinary evil of the Nazi system highlights, by way of contrast, the example of those who behaved decently --at a time when such decency required true heroism. Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsie were devout Christians living in Holland during the Nazi occupation. They began hiding Jews in their home. Although they knew what kind of risk they were taking they believed their actions were an obvious expression of their faith. Eventually they were caught and sent to a series of concentration camps. Betsie and their father died, while Corrie survived. She wrote a remarkable memoir of their experience The Hiding Place which was also made into a movie. Apart from their courageous actions as rescuers, a particularly moving aspect of their story is the faith that continued to sustain them through their ordeal. They believed it was possible to bear witness to God's love, even in the most terrible circumstances. Betsie actually gave thanks to God for the opportunity to show love and kindness to her fellow prisoners. And this became Corrie's lifelong mission --to proclaim that there is "no pit so deep" that God's love is not deeper still.
GM: You include the novelist Flannery O'Connor among the women in your book. She once wrote to a correspondent: "I write the way I do because (not though) I am a Catholic. This is a fact and nothing covers it like the bald statement. However, I am a Catholic peculiarly possessed of the modern consciousness... To possess this within the Church is to bear a burden, the necessary burden for the conscious Catholic. It's to feel the contemporary situation at the ultimate level." Can you talk to me about O'Connor's "necessary burden" for the conscious Catholic?
RE: Reading the letters of Flannery O'Connor The Habit of Being was a major influence on my decision to become a Catholic many years ago. From her I first perceived that being a Catholic was not simply a matter of believing certain things, or even behaving in a certain way, but of seeing the world in the light of certain articles of faith --particularly the Incarnation and the Resurrection. It was this way of seeing --and not the subject matter of her stories-- that marked her as a Catholic novelist. But she was aware of how difficult it was to sustain and communicate this vision in a culture that has so little awareness of mystery or respect for the spiritual dimension. At the same time she felt the challenge to reconcile her faith with the demands of modern consciousness --a sense of history, an awareness of the failings and sins of the church, the scientific revolution, and so forth. All the time she was suffering from the degenerative illness that killed her at the age of thirty-nine. I consider her to be not just one of the great Catholic artists of our time, but a true spiritual friend and teacher.
GM: I was drawn to the poet and contemplative Raïssa Maritain. You described her being united with Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain not only by the bonds of holy matrimony --but by "holy friendship." What did holy friendship mean to this couple?
RE: Among the list of canonized saints there are many examples of significant partnerships between men and women: Think of St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac. But these were all members of religious orders. Raïssa Maritain and her husband Jacques are an example of a married couple who supported and encouraged one another on their respective paths to holiness.
Raïssa, a Russian émigré of Jewish descent, met Jacques when they were both students at the Sorbonne. They were instantly attracted and decided to marry. But they also shared a passionate quest for the Truth --so deep that they made a mutual pact to kill themselves after a year if they couldn't discover the meaning of life. Fortunately, through their friendship with various philosophers and writers they were both drawn to become Catholics. Jacques became a world-famous philosopher. Raïssa, a poet and contemplative, was lesser known, though Thomas Merton called her "one of the great contemplatives of our time." Jacques and Raïssa became Benedictine Oblates and took a vow of celibacy. Nevertheless, they felt that their religious vocation was not in a religious order but in the midst of the world --particularly among the intellectual and artistic circles in which they were immersed.
GM: You include the "Mystic of the Holocaust" Etty Hillesum in the book. You explain that: "Her sense of a call to solidarity with those who suffer became the specific form of her religious vocation. But it was not a vocation to suffering as such. It was a vocation to redeem the suffering of humanity from within, by safeguarding 'that little piece of You, God, in ourselves.'" Can you talk to me a bit more about Etty Hillesum's spirituality?
RE: Etty Hillesum was sort of a grown-up Anne Frank. A secular Jew, a writer and intellectual, she was also living in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. Etty was a passionate woman with an incredible zest for life, as well as a deep sensitivity to human suffering. She was driven by a thirst for the Absolute --a need to find God in the midst of her experience. Her diary, which was published many decades after her death, provides a very moving record of this struggle. From the moment she was first required to wear a yellow star she discerned the destination of the Nazi policies --her own death and the intended extermination of her people. And yet in continuing to affirm a spirit of love and forgiveness, in living life to the full, she found her own vocation. This included her solidarity with those who suffer, her determination, on entering a concentration camp to become "the thinking heart" of the camp, to redeem the suffering of humanity by safeguarding the presence of God in her own soul. She died in Auschwitz at the age of twenty-nine.
For me Etty is one of the great spiritual witnesses of our time --a mystic, whose message is not directed to any particular religious tradition. She is the source of the words I used as the epigraph for my book: "That is why I must try to live a good and faithful life to my last breath; so that those who come after me do not have to start all over again." It speaks to the purpose of recording and remembering these lives. None of us lives for ourselves alone. Even if we are known to only a few other people, we have a choice about the kind of legacy we shall leave, whether we have added to the love and goodness in the world. She reminds me of the statement of St. Irenaeus: "The glory of God is the human being fully alive."
When we embrace life with compassion and insight, fully aware of the darkness of history, but confident in the depths of God's deeper love --that is the meaning of true holiness.
GM: You write about the laywoman Daria Donnelly in the section devoted to the Beatitude "Blessed are the Pure of Heart." It's one of the most moving passages in the book. Before her death she encouraged you to include examples of ordinary women in your book, especially mothers, and those who knew the spiritual challenge of finding God amid the chaos and distractions of family life. This is something that people of faith often forget about don't they?
RE: Many people are particularly touched by this story because it describes someone who is much more recognizable and familiar to most of us than some of the famous and heroic examples in the book. Daria was one of my best friends and the godmother of my son. Soon after the birth of her second child she discovered that she had a rare and deadly form of cancer. She suffered for three years and died while I was finishing this book. I knew right away that I wanted to include her. She exemplified as much as any of these "great" saints the real vocation that each of us faces --to embrace God's love and to reflect it back toward everyone we meet. She was a devout Catholic, but that meant so much more than simply religious observance. It was reflected in her capacity to feel joy, sorrow, outrage, and hope in all the appropriate ways. She was steeped in Scripture and saw the presence of God in every aspect of her life --the pleasures of friendship and motherhood, her work as a critic and editor, and also in her sufferings and sorrows.
As I wrote my last book The Saints' Guide to Happiness, I had Daria very much in mind. In her everyday actions and attitudes she exemplified the "lessons" contained in that book: learning to be alive, to let go, to suffer, to die --she had mastered them all. But one of her criticisms was that in focusing on so many famous spiritual prodigies I had ignored the holiness of more ordinary people. Where were the mothers and fathers, she asked? Where were the lessons about finding God in the ordinary chaos of family life? She urged me, in writing about women saints, not to ignore such examples. Before she died she wrote my daughter, commending her role in rescuing an aged horse: "The only thing that matters is showing love and compassion in the time that is given us. Your love for Leroy has altered the universe."
Daria Donnelly is not likely to be canonized. But in her own way she altered the universe, and I am glad for an opportunity to honor her memory.
Gerry McCarthy is Editor of The Social Edge.
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