Saint Stories From Fr. Groeschel
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Faith on Friday, October 02, 2009 4:00 PM
I had the grace of attending a lecture from Fr. Benedict Groeschel last evening.
He was in Washington, giving a lecture on the stages of the spiritual life to students and friends of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, where he is an adjunct professor.
I thought you might be interested in three anecdotes about three different saints he has known personally—two of whom he expects to be canonized. My quotations here will actually be paraphrases—I’m going by memory—so I could be subject to correction in some details, but I am confident that I’m transmitting the essentials for you correctly.
Illustrating the quality of the acceptance of mystery which accompanies our progress from the beginner to the intermediate stage of the interior life, Fr. Groeschel went into a wonderful digression about his personal interactions with Fr. Solanus Casey, with whom he lived in community for a period of time.
Fr. Solanus was what’s known as a “simple” priest. He was ordained, but never allowed to preach or hear confessions because he was considered intellectually inadequate. He flunked theology twice. His kindness and prayerfulness were exceptional, however, and Fr. Groeschel testified that he also had an extraordinary communion with nature—animals weren’t afraid of him, to the extent that he could sometimes be seen petting a robin that alit on his finger.
One day bees were swarming on the property, and everyone went out in protective gear to try to get them back into the hive. Fr. Solanus came out with no protection whatever and started talking to the bees, gently cooing them back to the hive.
“Oh,” he said, “There’s a second queen and that’s why they’re swarming.” He reached in with his bare hand, pulled out the extra queen, wrapped her in his handkerchief and said, “Oh, poor little creature.”
Fr. Groeschel said, “You know bees go crazy if you mess with their queen….but I saw this with my own eyes.”
The second wonderful anecdote concerned Mother Teresa’s long and wrenching experience of spiritual darkness. “Some of the things she says about her prayer life are very frightening—‘My prayer falls back upon me like a dagger…’ and yet, the darkness lifted.”
That’s an extraordinary claim, but Fr. Groeschel said he’d interacted with Mother Teresa for many years. He’d never known she was in spiritual darkness, but he did know her as a somber person. She smiled, but she was not someone with whom you could crack a joke.
On her last visit to the States, however, the Sisters called Fr. Benedict to say mass for her because she was failing and on her way back to India. He and Fr. Andrew Apostoli went down to say mass for her, and found her frail, lying on a little sofa because she couldn’t get up, but jolly and laughing in a way he’d never seen her before. When the Mass was over, he told Fr. Andrew they’d never see her again because she was going home, and sure enough, she passed away not too long after her return to India.
Finally, a great story used to illustrate true contemplative prayer. (Actually, he had several of these and has a mind to write a book about totally hidden saints he has known). While visiting a congregation to preach their annual retreat, he heard the confession of an Irish priest—one Fr. Isadore Kennedy—who had the reputation for being very holy. He prayed on his knees in the chapel every afternoon from 1-5 or some such interval. The other brothers called this, “Izzy’s trips.”
When the confession was over, Fr. Benedict wanted to learn something from this holiness, so he sat him down and said, “You have a secret.”
Fr. Kennedy sort of demurred, but eventually Fr. Groeschel prodded him to admit, “Well, yes, it’s a little secret, not much of anything.”
But it was a big something. “I have had the grace to live my life at the Last Supper, sitting in St. John’s place.”
That’s what he was doing in all those hours of prayer each day.
“That,” said Fr. Groeschel, “is contemplation.”
The overarching point of his address was how irrelevant to sanctity education, intellect and attention are. Even sin, when it springs from weakness and not from apathy about holiness, isn’t a hindrance to spiritual progress. The keys to spiritual progress are perseverance in prayer, unflagging desire to do God’s will, and patient endurance of trials and darkness, which are essential to spiritual maturity.
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