More Thoughts on Secualr Saints

Yesterday I wrote about the phenomena of dead celebrities being afforded the type of veneration once reserved for Catholic saints. In some ways it makes sense, considering that in life so many actors, singers, professional athletes, and those famous for being well known increasingly use their fame as a sort of bully pulpit to promote causes and advocate political platforms. Private industry, social action groups and even the government have long understood the power of celebrity, and have sought endorsements and testimonials from the rich and famous. Whether it's Babe Ruth selling Wheaties or Sinatra singing for JFK, there has always been an understanding that the American people are star struck, and whether we want to admit it or not are influenced by a famous name. It's image over reality, of course. But for those in the public eye, more and more surrounded by agents and publicists and a myth making machine that we once called a free press, the image wins out over reality, just about every time. It's no wonder then that when these people die there are a few who's myth was so powerful in life that it carries over into death.

This postmortem myth making machine is a very profitable one. The estates of Elvis, Bob Marley and Marilyn Monroe, celebrities all gone for decades, still rake in millions every year from merchandise licensing and residuals. Michael Jackson is the latest entry into this sad category. Billboard reports that his estate earned in the neighborhood of 1 billion dollars in the first four years after his death. His death also sanitized his image. For years after he was acquitted of child molestation charges, I don't remember hearing a Michael Jackson song on the radio or playing over a mall PA system. It was as if the man who was once the biggest entertainer in the world had fallen off the face of the earth. The jury may have decided one way but the court of public opinion had reached a different verdict. But in death it seems like all is forgiven, and even pretty much forgotten, so that the airwaves are again safe for the gloved one, thus allowing the Jackson family to pay off all those creditors along the way. 

We have adopted this alternate "communion of saints" because our values have changed. What once had value no longer does, and the growth of the devotion to Elvis over devotion to The Little Flower is a reflection of this shift. 
 
In the Church, we venerate saints because in their life we see an example to follow. The Christian life is not easy, and we need encouragement. Saints often had to endure illness, misunderstanding, poverty, persecution, long hours of work for little material benefit, failure and, in some cases martyrdom. Some lived lives of wanton abandon in youth, followed by powerful conversions which led them to live chastely and soberly. They did this because they saw a greater good; the salvation of souls, beginning with their own. They believed that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and followed the call to spread that Good News according to the gifts they were given. While they made great sacrifices out of love in this life, they are now where we want to be; in Heaven, sharing in Christ's glory. Most of us will never reach the heights of these heroic men and women, but at least we know that it is possible, with God's grace. 

Life in Christ should make us concerned with the here and now, but it should also tune us into the transcendent. God is God of the living, not the dead, so that the Saints are still alive and active, though in a different way. We can call on them as we can call on a friend for help. They remind us that we are not alone, and the separation of death is not the end.

As I wrote, our values have changed. We have bought the lie, at least implicitly, that religion is an opiate. But where as Marx thought that faith in a afterlife was a drug blinding us to the social injustices around us, the Cult of Celebrity convinces us that we're fools to wait for a reward that may not be there after death; better to get yours now. We breath the air of scientism that denies a reality beyond the senses. We don't want to wait for Heaven because we're more sure of our doubt than in our faith in Christ. Since this eternal reward is far from assured, we are afraid of making the hard sacrifices because we don't see what we'll get out of it in the short term. 

As an aside, I often hear it said that the problem today is that priests don't preach enough about hell and the devil. In truth, I'm not sure we preach enough about Heaven.

In the secular church we worship the cult of personality because, as I wrote yesterday, we are left with idealized images of, usually, young, pretty people. This helps feed into our deification of youth. While most of these celebrities dealt with some "inner-demon," this struggle is romanticized as the price one pays to be an artist, or as the result of being so unique that no one really understood what it was like to be them. Other wise we admire the life of pleasure and, often times, excess that they crammed into their short lives. 

And where they are, we want to be; on a t-shirt, or a billboard or a commemorative shot glass, selling everything from perfume, motel rooms, to light beer. To have fame in this life, the proverbial fifteen minutes that Andy Warhol spoke of, is a national obsession, but to have it perpetuated for decades is the ultimate validation. We are no longer moved by the Gospel message of carrying the Cross now, in service of God and neighbor, with a promise of eternal happiness to follow. We want the reward on the front end, with the promise of never being forgotten by the public after we die.

I wish that I had some neat wrap up to this theme. This should be the place where I offer solutions and encourage the faithful. But I think that this phenomena is simply a symptom of a wider reality; that, as a culture, we are determined to sow in the flesh. We prefer illusion to reality, the quick drag as opposed to the long pull, as Fulton Sheen would have put it. I think that the good news is that this inclination towards the eternal, that is natural to all of us, is not dead. It may be misdirected, but it's still there. And there are young people who are in tuned to it. When I go to a campus chapel and see college kids stopping in to visit the Blessed Sacrament between classes, or kids in our parish, huddled in a small group, praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet, it gives me hope in the future.

 

Ummmm...No