I have been reading about the lives of two holy men and women (one saint, one blessed) with not-so-holy beginnings.
Olga, princess of Kiev, lived in 10th century Ukraine. After a rival prince murdered her husband, she avenged him with a bloodbath. Some Drevlians she burned alive; others she burned. As for Prince Mal and 500 of his most prominent nobleman and warriors, she invited them to a reconciliation banquet, waited until they were drunk, then slaughtered them all. Finally, she attacked the Drevlian capital, burned it to the ground and sold the survivors into slavery.
[*um please don't hurt me*]
She traveled to Constantinople at the age of 75 to meet with the Byzantine emperor, but while there experienced a conversion. She asked to be instructed in the Christian faith and be baptized. When she returned to Kiev she brought carts piled with liturgical vessels, vestments, relics of the saints, Bibles and other sacred texts to establish Christianity in he home region.
But it didn't take. Her people overwhelming rejected Christianity and killed the missionaries. Her family refused to convert, her son claiming that Jesus Christ was a god unsuitable for a warrior prince. She died believing she was a failure. It wasn't until years later under her grandson St. Vladimir that the faith planted by Olga took root and flourished in the region.
Bl Charles de Foucault was born in 1858 in France. He was raised in a Christian home but drifted away from his faith and took up traveling, adventures, and women. But eventually he resumed the practice of his faith after meeting devout Jews and Muslims in his travels. He joined the Trappists but left and was eventually ordained a priest. He traveled to Morocco to found a religious order to minister to Muslims, Jews, Christians, and people of no belief at all, but no one in his lifetime really joined him and he lived alone in the desert among the Tuareg nomads making nary a convert until he was shot to death in a raid from a neighboring tribe.
Failure is close to my heart. I attempted to hike the Appalachian Trail after high school and came home after New York state with my tail between my legs. I tried to live as an urban hermit in a school bus and failed. I quit my job and tried to make it as a writer. Fail. I started a business and that failed too.
It stings, failure. Makes you think your life is one big waste, that you would have been just as better off doing nothing and you would have fared better than a year or lifetime of work that you put in. When things don't bear fruit in your life, its hard to feel they ever will.
No doubt what feels to be a colossal fail in my life is evangelization, sharing the Christian faith and hoping maybe someone, somewhere, will give it a home. Thank God at least it is in His hands. Sometimes the Way just gets lonely, like you wish you had more people walking with you, and you wonder what your life is going to amount to if you keep going down this foolish path of following Jesus, betting the house, and you look back and realize ain't nobody following you, you are flapping out there in the wind by yourself. Nobody wants to be a fool, ridiculed or ignored or treated as a leper. And yet that's so often the fate of those who follow Jesus. Who would choose this life??
And yet there's something else. Something beneath the surface, behind the curtain, that we just. can't. see. in this life. A promise for those who persevere. The foolishness ultimately counts for nothing, for this temporary world is not our final home.
I still get lonely. I start feel like a failure as a Christian and a failure for being a Christian. I don't think Jesus ever doubted his mission--he knew he was, who loved him, and what he had to ultimately do. But those standing with him at the foot of the cross were few and far between. But that day of the crucifixion...I can't help thinking the disciples feeling that pit in their gut. They had bet the house. And lost. It would be a long, sleepless three days before they would realize that the story wasn't over.
Olga, princess of Kiev, lived in 10th century Ukraine. After a rival prince murdered her husband, she avenged him with a bloodbath. Some Drevlians she burned alive; others she burned. As for Prince Mal and 500 of his most prominent nobleman and warriors, she invited them to a reconciliation banquet, waited until they were drunk, then slaughtered them all. Finally, she attacked the Drevlian capital, burned it to the ground and sold the survivors into slavery.
[*um please don't hurt me*]
She traveled to Constantinople at the age of 75 to meet with the Byzantine emperor, but while there experienced a conversion. She asked to be instructed in the Christian faith and be baptized. When she returned to Kiev she brought carts piled with liturgical vessels, vestments, relics of the saints, Bibles and other sacred texts to establish Christianity in he home region.
But it didn't take. Her people overwhelming rejected Christianity and killed the missionaries. Her family refused to convert, her son claiming that Jesus Christ was a god unsuitable for a warrior prince. She died believing she was a failure. It wasn't until years later under her grandson St. Vladimir that the faith planted by Olga took root and flourished in the region.
Bl Charles de Foucault was born in 1858 in France. He was raised in a Christian home but drifted away from his faith and took up traveling, adventures, and women. But eventually he resumed the practice of his faith after meeting devout Jews and Muslims in his travels. He joined the Trappists but left and was eventually ordained a priest. He traveled to Morocco to found a religious order to minister to Muslims, Jews, Christians, and people of no belief at all, but no one in his lifetime really joined him and he lived alone in the desert among the Tuareg nomads making nary a convert until he was shot to death in a raid from a neighboring tribe.
Failure is close to my heart. I attempted to hike the Appalachian Trail after high school and came home after New York state with my tail between my legs. I tried to live as an urban hermit in a school bus and failed. I quit my job and tried to make it as a writer. Fail. I started a business and that failed too.
It stings, failure. Makes you think your life is one big waste, that you would have been just as better off doing nothing and you would have fared better than a year or lifetime of work that you put in. When things don't bear fruit in your life, its hard to feel they ever will.
No doubt what feels to be a colossal fail in my life is evangelization, sharing the Christian faith and hoping maybe someone, somewhere, will give it a home. Thank God at least it is in His hands. Sometimes the Way just gets lonely, like you wish you had more people walking with you, and you wonder what your life is going to amount to if you keep going down this foolish path of following Jesus, betting the house, and you look back and realize ain't nobody following you, you are flapping out there in the wind by yourself. Nobody wants to be a fool, ridiculed or ignored or treated as a leper. And yet that's so often the fate of those who follow Jesus. Who would choose this life??
And yet there's something else. Something beneath the surface, behind the curtain, that we just. can't. see. in this life. A promise for those who persevere. The foolishness ultimately counts for nothing, for this temporary world is not our final home.
I still get lonely. I start feel like a failure as a Christian and a failure for being a Christian. I don't think Jesus ever doubted his mission--he knew he was, who loved him, and what he had to ultimately do. But those standing with him at the foot of the cross were few and far between. But that day of the crucifixion...I can't help thinking the disciples feeling that pit in their gut. They had bet the house. And lost. It would be a long, sleepless three days before they would realize that the story wasn't over.
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But unto us who are saved, it is the power of God."
(1 Cor 1:18)
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