Begin at the Beginning

In the first place, the saint is one who begins with himself and with what he must do, not with denunciations of society and its wrongs... As the saint finds his life laid open before the scrutiny of the All-Loving One, he is acutely aware that all of the projected sins of society are present within himself. And with God’s help he is concerned to begin from within, in Maritain’s words, “to purify the springs of history within his own heart”...

Having begun with the first person singular, there is no naivete about the world’s natural goodness among the saints. Nor is there any of the social revolutionary’s naivete about the automatic character of making all men good by the manipulation of the political or economic environment. The saint knows sin for what it is because he knows it within himself.

“There is only one means of salvation, to make yourself responsible for other men’s sins; that is the truth... for as soon as you sincerely make yourself responsible for everything, for all men, you will see at once that it is really so, and that you are to blame for everyone and for all things. By throwing your own indolence and impatience on others, you will end by sharing the pride of Satan and murmuring against God.” [Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov]

“Most ordinary saints are quite unequipped for politics. And I doubt whether even with good equipment the ordinary saint who is not exceptionally shrewd can ever be a wholehearted and effective revolutionary. Vivid consciousness of the fundamental humanity of all men, even of the enemies of the revolution, is apt to snare him into being tolerant and conciliatory when he should be firm. On the other hand, a revolution in which the saints exercise no influence is sure to degenerate sooner or later into a ruthless tyranny.” [Olaf Stapleton, Saints and Revolutionaries]

In the Franciscan Order, when a man entered the order, he gave away his property if he had any, but he kept the tools of his trade. [Similarly] in apostleship the individual and the racial and temperamental tools of the person are kept, for there are no two saints or apostles who are alike... The natural tools of their heredity have indeed been retained, but the tools are now employed in a new service...

The saint is not overcome by sin, for he knows the Light by which the darkness is revealed as darkness; and his trust is in that Light... In the saints we have men and women who stand and who are not thrown off balance by opposition... For it saw that many of them would have to stand alone if they were to be the seed beneath the snow.

To regard the witness of the saints with care is to be reminded that if the trunk of a tree catches the rock mass early, a single, firmly-rooted tree can even hold back an avalanche... the perseverance of the saints is a continual stream of new beginnings, and for them to be thwarted on one front means only quietly to move to another...

What you bring does not matter, provided you bring all of it...

Yet, the saint is not by reason of that, infallible, and when his judgments in regard to society are examined, this becomes very clear. He may be able to see and to act in some area with great clarity, and in other areas he may be very much the child of this age... Anyone who claims infallible wisdom or strategy for the saints in all social and political areas only does so because he is ignorant of the facts.

Yet when this has been admitted, it does not set aside the saint’s influence on society in specific areas where his vision did cut through conventional wrappings to the issue itself, nor does it affect the contribution which his living a full life in response to man’s highest calling makes upon the generation...

On Beginning from Within (1943) – Douglas V. Steere (Quaker)