J. Nol, I should not have used the term “saint” because it is so deeply misunderstood by most people nowadays, not excluding some who offer prayers before plaster statues—but are at least sincere in their devotion...
There was, in fact, a reason for my doing so: hearing that some religious people think Alexei Navalny will end up by being …
J. Nol, I should not have used the term “saint” because it is so deeply misunderstood by most people nowadays, not excluding some who offer prayers before plaster statues—but are at least sincere in their devotion...
There was, in fact, a reason for my doing so: hearing that some religious people think Alexei Navalny will end up by being canonized…
When Pope John Paul II canonized Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, the Founder of Opus Dei, following a highly speeded-up process, I remarked that I never knew canonization was the Church’s Order of Lenin. The intellectual and organizational qualities of the Opus Dei founder, his foresight, his political and social acumen, are not in doubt; but it feels more than strange to find such a one in the same stable as Francis of Assisi or Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, Saint John of the Cross, even Ignacio de Loyola...
And even when we come across a case as extraordinary as that of young Thérèse Martin—Saint Thérèse of Lisieux—even more extraordinary is the Catholic Church's pomp-and-propaganda exploitation of a brief life of such intense love and austere simplicity.
Can’t help recalling the great Spanish film director Luis Buñuel calling the vast basilica dedicated to Thérèse “the Lisieux gasworks”.
Likewise the Russian Orthodox Church's problematic political saints like Vladimir, a prince of Kievan Rus, or Alexander Nevsky—a protector figure, inspiration to the country's defenders—or, given the disastrous errors of their reign and the immeasurable cost of those errors for Russia, for Europe, for the world, Saint Nicholas and Saint Alexandra... the last Tsar and Tsaritsa... At the same time, I am aware of two things: the wide overlap between the sacred and the profane in Tsarist Russia and consequently in the Russian psyche... and the disheartening awfulness of the commandeering by the Putin regime of the Russian Orthodox Church, via its KGB Patriarch, turning it into a subordinate branch of that regime, purged of many good, honest priests and genuine ordinary Christians. Perhaps unsurprising in an organization that excommunicated Leo Tolstoy in 1901… but even that made more sense than what we are seeing today…
Not content with destroying the present and future of both Russia and Ukraine with the human sacrifice of both countries’ young men, the dictator and his cabal of crazed mythomaniac ideologues have set out to co-opt for their dirty work the Russian soul itself—or at least the aspect of it that empowers and gives meaning to spiritual core of the Orthodox Church.
To conclude, what I see behind the word "SAINT" is not someone radically different from the rest of us but simply one who has expressed all the finer human qualities to the limit of their potential and, in so doing, found her or himself.
That said, I’d rather seek terms for such heroic figures other than those long abused by priests for purposes of religious propaganda. Fundamentally, we’re talking here of a phenomenon quite beyond the confines of organized religion.
"I see behind this word is not someone radically different from the rest of us but simply one who has expressed all the finer human qualities to the limit of their potential and, in so doing, found her or himself." With this statement I agree. People like these demonstrate what is possible in being human, and those others you referred to of course, showed us the depths humans can fall to as well.
J. Nol, I should not have used the term “saint” because it is so deeply misunderstood by most people nowadays, not excluding some who offer prayers before plaster statues—but are at least sincere in their devotion...
There was, in fact, a reason for my doing so: hearing that some religious people think Alexei Navalny will end up by being canonized…
When Pope John Paul II canonized Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, the Founder of Opus Dei, following a highly speeded-up process, I remarked that I never knew canonization was the Church’s Order of Lenin. The intellectual and organizational qualities of the Opus Dei founder, his foresight, his political and social acumen, are not in doubt; but it feels more than strange to find such a one in the same stable as Francis of Assisi or Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, Saint John of the Cross, even Ignacio de Loyola...
And even when we come across a case as extraordinary as that of young Thérèse Martin—Saint Thérèse of Lisieux—even more extraordinary is the Catholic Church's pomp-and-propaganda exploitation of a brief life of such intense love and austere simplicity.
Can’t help recalling the great Spanish film director Luis Buñuel calling the vast basilica dedicated to Thérèse “the Lisieux gasworks”.
Likewise the Russian Orthodox Church's problematic political saints like Vladimir, a prince of Kievan Rus, or Alexander Nevsky—a protector figure, inspiration to the country's defenders—or, given the disastrous errors of their reign and the immeasurable cost of those errors for Russia, for Europe, for the world, Saint Nicholas and Saint Alexandra... the last Tsar and Tsaritsa... At the same time, I am aware of two things: the wide overlap between the sacred and the profane in Tsarist Russia and consequently in the Russian psyche... and the disheartening awfulness of the commandeering by the Putin regime of the Russian Orthodox Church, via its KGB Patriarch, turning it into a subordinate branch of that regime, purged of many good, honest priests and genuine ordinary Christians. Perhaps unsurprising in an organization that excommunicated Leo Tolstoy in 1901… but even that made more sense than what we are seeing today…
Not content with destroying the present and future of both Russia and Ukraine with the human sacrifice of both countries’ young men, the dictator and his cabal of crazed mythomaniac ideologues have set out to co-opt for their dirty work the Russian soul itself—or at least the aspect of it that empowers and gives meaning to spiritual core of the Orthodox Church.
To conclude, what I see behind the word "SAINT" is not someone radically different from the rest of us but simply one who has expressed all the finer human qualities to the limit of their potential and, in so doing, found her or himself.
That said, I’d rather seek terms for such heroic figures other than those long abused by priests for purposes of religious propaganda. Fundamentally, we’re talking here of a phenomenon quite beyond the confines of organized religion.
"I see behind this word is not someone radically different from the rest of us but simply one who has expressed all the finer human qualities to the limit of their potential and, in so doing, found her or himself." With this statement I agree. People like these demonstrate what is possible in being human, and those others you referred to of course, showed us the depths humans can fall to as well.