By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
God’s Wild Flowers: Saints With Disabilities by Pia Matthews (266 pages, Gracewing Publishing, paperback and hardcover). Available at amazon.com.
God’s Wild Flowers: Saints With Disabilities is an inspiring book which looks at the lives of a large number of saints with disabilities of one sort or another, under a variety of different categories, including disabled saints who lived out the Passion of Christ, and those who were regarded by the world as “fools for Christ.”
Pia Matthews has a large family including a profoundly disabled daughter, and begins by describing the difficulties but also the joys that her upbringing has involved. She sees her daughter’s life — apart from its intrinsic worth because she is a child of God — as also an opportunity for other people to express their love for her without expecting anything in return.
The author points to the insight of St. Therese of Lisieux that we are all like flowers in God’s garden, all with different gifts and vocations, and that there are great souls and smaller ones, but that all have their part to play in life. And in fact Pope St. John Paul II said that people with disabilities are on the front line of the new evangelization, and are exceptional spreaders of the Gospel, and so they too are workers in God’s vineyard.
Matthews argues that it is important for people to realize that many of the saints did suffer from disabilities of one sort or another, and that this can an encouragement for those who feel intimidated by stories of apparent saintly perfection. And she also makes the important point that “perhaps, because of the illusion of strength and self-sufficiency, it is not those who have disabilities who are often in most need.”
Some of the saints the author looks at, including St. Camillus de Lellis (1550-1614), had a very unlikely path to sanctity. His father was a soldier and he had a difficult upbringing. He too became a soldier at the age of nineteen, but developed ulcerated legs and also an addiction to gambling. Eventually, he decided to become a religious, but was repeatedly rejected and ended up in a hospital for incurables in Rome.
He then decided to try and help his fellow sufferers but his continued love of gambling and his aggressiveness led to him being asked to leave the hospital. However he persevered in his new religious convictions, got an education, and returned to the hospital where he eventually became its director.
He was ordained in 1584, and founded an order to minister to the sick, despite his increasing ill health and the various debilitating and chronic conditions he suffered from, to the point that he was unable to walk at times. He was canonized in 1746 and is a wonderful example of a person finding his way to sanctity in spite of very serious health and personality problems.
St. Joseph Cafasso (1811-1860), the friend and mentor of St. John Bosco, was born with a serious spinal deformity and was also frail and small of stature. Despite this, he became a priest and developed a mission to prisoners and those condemned to death, such that he became known as the “priest of the gallows.” He died at the age of 49 from pneumonia, a stomach hemorrhage, and complications due to his spinal deformity and was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1947.
Another saint who suffered much was André Bessette (1845-1937) who was born near Montreal. Apparently, when he was born there was such concern over his health that he was baptized the next day, and later he had severe stomach problems and other illnesses which disrupted his schooling. He became an orphan at the age of 12, in 1857, but his physical weakness prevented him from farm work or taking up a trade.
He eventually joined the Holy Cross congregation, and despite continued poor health, worked to build a shrine to St. Joseph which eventually grew into St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal, Canada’s largest church.
Of course it is not just physical disabilities which can seem like a barrier to holiness, but also mental problems and the sufferings endured through ill treatment meted out by others. This was the case with Blessed Otto Neururer (1882-1940) who was from Austria. Like his mother he suffered from depression throughout his life, but despite this was ordained to the priesthood.
He came to the attention of the Nazis in 1938 when, as parish priest, he advised a local girl not to marry a divorced and morally dissolute man with Nazi connections. This led to him being sent to the concentration camps at Dachau and Buchenwald, and in the latter camp he was apparently frequently brutalized.
Eventually he was sent to a punishment block after he baptized a fellow prisoner. Here he was hanged upside down, naked, and died on May 30, 1940, after 34 hours of this excruciating torture. He was beatified in 1996 by Pope St. John Paul II having died in odium fidei, that is in hatred of the faith.
Perhaps it is of significance that the manner of his death, that is, through the agonizing accumulation of blood in his head, might well make him a powerful intercessor for those who suffer from depression.
Venerable Solanus Casey (1870-1957) who was born in Wisconsin, is another holy person who endured suffering during his life. He contracted diphtheria at the age of eight, and this permanently affected his health and voice. He became a Franciscan at the age of twenty one, and later on was ordained as a simplex priest, that is, one who could not preach or hear Confessions. He gained a reputation as a counselor and healer, but towards the end of his life suffered much from general debilitation and eczema. He eventually developed erysipelas, an acute skin infection, and died in 1957.
Another holy person who suffered much was Venerable Aloysius Schwartz (1930-1992), who was born in 1930 in Washington, D.C. He became a priest and worked to help, and fund-raise for, orphans, street children, and the poor in Korea, the Philippines, and Mexico. He also founded congregations of sisters and brothers. He did this despite the fact that he contracted hepatitis soon after being ordained in 1957, and in 1989 was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, a form of motor neuron disease, which confined him to a wheelchair.
Victim Souls
It is worth noting that none of the saints described in this book were actually cured of their disability or poor health. This was certainly the case with Blessed Alexandrina da Costa (1904-1955), a Portuguese woman who was known as the “fourth seer of Fatima.”
She became crippled after jumping from a window to escape from her employer who wanted to sexual assault her. Her parish priest organized a pilgrimage to Fatima, but when she drank some of the holy water he brought back for her, instead of being cured she received the grace to accept her sufferings, to the extent that she eventually became a victim soul.
All of these saints and holy people show us that whatever disabilities we labor under, be they great or small, we can, with God’s grace, overcome them and live fulfilling lives. God’s Wild Flowers: Saints With Disabilities reminds us of this fact, and will no doubt be very helpful for many readers who are suffering in one way or another, and also for the able-bodied in helping them to realize how much they have for which they should be grateful.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theotokos.org.uk. He has also written two time-travel/adventure books for young people, and the third in the series is due to be published later this year — details can be seen at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk.)
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