Why Me?

John of the Cross, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Pio of Pietrelcina, Francis de Sales, Teresa of Avila.

“I am the potter, you are the clay.” An American couple who like to shop for antiques entered a store in England. They spotted an exceptional tea cup. As the clerk handed them the cup, it suddenly spoke up, “I haven’t always been a tea cup. When I was just a lump of red clay, the potter rolled, pounded, and patted me over and over again. Finally, I yelled, ‘Let me alone!’ but he just smiled. Then he placed me on a spinning wheel and suddenly plunged me into a red hot oven. I yelled, kicked, and pounded the door, ‘Help, get me out of here!’ He shook his head, meaning, not yet. When I thought I couldn’t bear it another minute, the door opened. Gently he placed me on a shelf, and I began to cool off. It felt so good! When I cooled down, he painted me, and I began to gag on the fumes. I shouted, ‘Please stop!’ He said, ‘Not yet,’ and placed me in an oven twice as hot as the first time. I was sure I’d suffocate. I screamed, pleaded, and begged to no avail. When I was about to give up, he took me out, placed me on the shelf again, and I began to cool down. ‘What will he do next?’ I asked myself. About two hours later, he handed me a mirror and told me to look at myself. I was amazed and blurted out, ‘That’s not me, I am too beautiful!’ In a quiet voice, he said, ‘I know the process hurt you and made you dizzy, but if I had stopped, you’d have crumbled. I know the heat got to you, but if I had stopped, you’d have cracked. If I hadn’t put paint on you, you wouldn’t have hardened nor have any color in your life. If I hadn’t put you in the oven a second time, you wouldn’t have survived very long, because the hardening wouldn’t have held. Thankfully, you’ve endured and become what I first had in mind—an object of beauty.’”

We are placed in God’s furnace and endure our hardships, but in the process, we become strong enough to endure a world spinning out of control and are able to survive life’s fiery furnace of trials, losses, and disappointments. We each become one of God’s masterpieces, capable of living eternal life.

Examples of God’s Masterpieces

Every life of a saint tells us this story. Mother Theresa of Calcutta was given the inspiration to become a missionary in India. She had to leave her homeland and go to Ireland for a novitiate in an English-speaking land. Then she journeyed to India and lived in another foreign culture with many languages. She taught in a select girl’s school and she was comfortable, but God was to give her many more trials and unexpected changes in her life. When she was riding on a train, she received an inspiration to leave her community and work among the poorest of the poor. Her superiors tested this inspiration and finally gave her permission to do so. Where was she to begin in the teeming streets of Calcutta? Totally dependent on God’s providence, she picked up her first dying patient from the gutter, and, thus, her new ministry began. Through prayer and dogged perseverance, she survived and drew others to help her, first, from among her former students, and in time, from people of many faiths around the world.

Her community prospered in an era when most religious communities declined rapidly. Combining contemplation with service to the poor and dying, her community spent at least three hours a day on its knees before the Blessed Sacrament. And many years later, media attention gained her worldwide fame.

But after her death, we learned that, from the late 1950s on, she rarely had any spiritual consolation. Her life was lived in spiritual desolation, and this pained her much. She only confided this to those who directed her spiritually. I was asked, “Why did God strip her of all consolations?” That is for God to say, but I can surmise, it was so she could be the role model for the kind of life her community is called to live: one of moment to moment total dependence upon God’s providence in the midst of deprivations and poverty.

St. Padre Pio had to deal with satanic temptations, ill health, and mistrust by some key churchmen in the Vatican. He was forbidden, for a time, to say a public Mass. He submitted to all of this suffering and continued to be faithful to God and his religious vocation. In time, he was vindicated, and his influence after death is profound.

Each person has a unique spiritual journey. St. John of the Cross’s journey led to his writing down his insights on spiritual growth, including his Dark Night of the Soul. He worked to reform Carmelite monasteries and was persecuted by his own community. His contemplation produced great Spanish poetry. His contemporary, St. Theresa of Avila, also a reformer, endured the trials and received the graces that led her to describe a clear guide for the soul in her writings, Interior Castle, The Way of Perfection, and her Life.

As a young man, St. Francis de Sales had to struggle with the question of predestination. If it was God’s will, he was willing to accept damnation. Prayer to Our Lady led to his release from this struggle. Early in his priesthood, he endured threats on his life and many hardships in order to reclaim souls for the Church. Because of his great meekness and humility, some saw, in Francis, Jesus again walking the face of the earth. His personal spiritual journey and his guidance of many other persons helped him to write two spiritual classics, Introduction to the Devout Life and Treatise on the Love of God, books that have guided countless persons on their spiritual journey. He taught that “we must fall in love with the God of consolations, not the consolations of God.”

A Young Masterpiece

Purification and spiritual growth can be very intense and relatively brief. Stanislaus Kotska (Stanley) and his older brother Paul began studies in their early teens in the Jesuit school in Vienna. In time, Stanley did well in his studies, and gradually he was drawn to lead a strong interior life, including frequent Mass attendance; prayer, even in the middle of the night; discipline with the cord until his back bled; and deep devotion to Mary. His peers resented his deep, devotional life. When he refused to change, Paul felt embarrassed and struck Stanley daily.

Mary appeared to Stanley and told him he would join the Jesuits. His spiritual life intensified even more, but when he approached the Jesuits in Vienna, they told him that he needed parental approval, and Stanley knew his father would not approve. He journeyed to see St. Peter Canisius. After he tested him for a few weeks, Peter sent him to Rome with two Jesuits. St. Francis Borgia, the Jesuit general, accepted him into the novitiate. Stanley made great spiritual progress, and his sanctity was apparent to the other novices and the professed Jesuits.

In his ninth month as a novice, he contracted malaria. On his deathbed, he was professed a Jesuit. Then Stanley said that Mary had appeared to him, and this 18-year-old Jesuit died on August 15th, the feast of the Assumption. The people of Rome regarded him as a saint, and soon there were reports of miracles. He was declared Blessed and his body was found to be incorrupt. A century later, he was canonized. St. Stanley Kotska is the Patron of Poland.

Some spiritual authors speak of three phases in the spiritual life: purification, illumination, and union with God. These are not static stages, and some aspects of the journey may move a soul back and forth among these stages. To become saints (beautiful teacups), there will be trials and tribulations along the way to help us to grow spiritually strong, more deeply united with the divine will, and fully dependent upon divine providence. As a friend once said wisely, “Why not me?”