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TO BE A SAINT
A Review of The Saints' Guide to Happiness

Daniel Hertzler

The Saints’ Guide to Happiness by Robert Ellsberg. North Point Press, 2003.

I found Robert Ellsberg’s book at the end of a list of books on the saints which began with that ancient classic, The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence. As a recent publication by the son of Daniel Ellsberg, Robert’s book looked interesting. As I was to find, it is a compilation based on the fact that he "has spent much of my life reading about the saints" (189).

I have been wary of saints and sainthood. Maybe, if I’m honest, I will acknowledge that I fear their example will lay on me a burden I’m unwilling to bear. But I’ve heard also about the medieval system against which my Anabaptist forebears rebelled. I understand that it was a compartmentalized system: Some were to be saints who do the right things; others were ordinary people expected to do the dirty work while following less than saintly ethics. In contrast I’ve understood that all Christians are expected to be saints in line with Paul’s opening words in Romans 1:7: "To all of God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints."

I found no article on "Saints" in Mennonite Encyclopedia, but H. S. Bender wrote one on "sanctification." He showed concern about the danger of perfectionism as found in some branches of Wesleyan theology. Yet he affirmed that "the insistence on real sanctification of life and true holy living is a major basic Anabaptist concept" (Vol. 4, 415).

But even if we insist that all Christians should be saints, we have to agree that some will be better able to express their vision in writing than others. It is such persons whose work is surveyed in The Saints’ Guide to Happiness.

Dorothy Day was the saint Ellsberg knew best. As a young person in search of life’s meaning, he came to the Catholic Worker house and lived there during the final years of Day’s life. Eventually he joined the Catholic church.

His book is organized as a series of learning exercises. Each chapter title uses the word learning. He explains that "The ‘lessons’ in this book are rooted not in my own wisdom or in any personal claim to holiness, but only in my own questions and my own search" (xvi).

He takes considerable space in the preface to justify his emphasis on happiness and points out that "Deep in the heart of every person is a longing for happiness" (ix). He notes the common tendency to see happiness as a feeling and asserts that the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 "are not about feeling at all. They are about sharing in the life and spirit—the happiness—of God" (xi). He affirms that "the theme of happiness runs like a silver thread through the Christian tradition, especially in the wisdom of its prime exponents, those holy men and women known as saints" (xii).

And so the search begins, and the report is organized under eight topics beginning with "Learning to Be Alive." What is to be learned from which saints? Because of the comprehensive nature of the book I find it difficult to generalize its message. There seems nothing better to do than to walk through it chapter by chapter.

Ellsberg illustrates "Learning to Be Alive" with a contemporary saint, James Martin, who changed from "the corporate world to a life rooted in traditional vows of poverty and chastity" (16). In this chapter he includes even Henry David Thoreau, of whom he says his "words resonate with the ancient challenge to wake up, shake off the coils of slumber, to learn how to be more fully alive" (19).

In "Learning to Let Go" Ellsberg features St Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) who "turned worldy values upside-down. Where others saw security, he saw only captivity; what for others represented success was for him a source of strife" (29).

St. Benedict (who died about 550) illustrates "Learning to Work." He "directed in his rule that each day should be carefully divided among prayer, study, and work, whether copying manuscripts, tending to the kitchen, or laboring in the fields. None of these tasks was more important than another" (42). Some have seen an affinity between Anabaptism and the Benedictine rule in that Michael Sattler had been a prior of a Benedictine monastery before he became an Anabaptist.

The desert fathers are called on to illustrate "Learning to Sit Still." They "developed a practice of mindful prayer centered on the repetition of holy phrases or even the name of Jesus." An example is the Jesus prayer, "‘Lord Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner,’ sometimes recited in coordination with their breathing" (68).

Dorothy Day is one of those featured in "Learning to Love." She is presented as one who loved first on a natural level while on the way to becoming a saint. Ellsberg observes that Day’s "love for Forster [her common law companion], for her daughter, for the beauty of the earth, and her love for the poor and downtrodden had brought her to believe in an even greater love" (84-85).

The Catholic Worker practice of taking in anyone who came sometimes created tension within the group. "Apparently if Dorothy Day could love so many apparently unlovable people, it was simply because she tried harder" (97).

The theme of happiness is tested most in chapters 6 and 7, "Learning to Suffer" and "Learning to Die." Is there to be happiness in suffering? "In not a few cases suffering played a crucial role in a saint’s conversion or the discernment of a vocation" (109).

The list of those who endured suffering joyfully ranges from ancient to modern. Julian of Norwich prayed for an illness so that he might understand the passion of Christ. Flannery O’Connor had lupus. "Her illness imposed a discipline and sense of priorities that she managed to turn to the advantage of her art" (117). Sheila Cassidy was a physician from England arrested and tortured in Chile because she had treated a wounded revolutionary. She learned to abandon herself "into the hands of God" (123).

"Here is perhaps the most troubling lesson the saints teach us, yet the most crucial in our consideration of happiness. We have limited control over the circumstances of our lives. But we have the power in every circumstance to shape our attitudes" (135-136).

In "Learning to Die" Ellsberg reports that "The saints believed in eternal life because they had, in some sense, already touched it" (140). He adds that "By living in mindfulness of the value and urgency of each moment [the saints] maintained an acute awareness of themselves and all that was at stake. The fear of death no longer confined them" (157).

Examples include Martin Luther King Jr., who was well aware of the possibility of assassination, and Cardinal Bernardin, who looked death from cancer in the face. He concludes that "Death will finish the job which we have left incomplete" (168).

Ellsberg then moves to "Learning to See." He writes of the experience of the disciples at Jesus’ Transfiguration. "In the typical life such epiphanies come infrequently if at all, and that is probably for the best. Most of us are no more equipped to face the naked truth than we are to stare at the sun" (178). So perhaps to be a saint is not to be really different from other people except in being more sensitive to life’s opportunities and responding to them.

In his concluding chapter Ellsberg asserts that the saints "have shown that the true happiness we all desire is the other side of the holiness to which we are called. The two proceed from the same practice and converge on the same goal" (190).

Is this a call to everyone? In the end, "If the canonized saints are the prodigies of the spiritual life, not everyone is called to be a prodigy. . . . But in walking this path worn smooth by the steps of many other saints, we find ourselves on the way to happiness. . . . Like any other great enterprise, this journey always begins with the first step" (197).

So there we have it. Sainthood is not a specialized calling. Any of us can be a saint. All that is required is for us to pay attention and open ourselves to the divine energy. H. S. Bender would surely approve.

—Daniel Hertzler, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, a longtime editor and writer, contributes a monthly column to the Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pa.). He says that if he had to be a real saint, he would want to be a Benedictine because Benedict affirmed both worship and work. The Rohrer’s seed catalog arrived about the time he finished this review, and visions of the new gardening year appeared in his head.