Scottish theologian John Swinton, founder of the Center for Spirituality, Health, and Disability, asks, “What does it mean to be a disciple with a vocation when you do not have the intellectual capacities that religion often demands for participation in the faith?”
The question pokes at a bias in many Christian religious traditions that the pursuit of the intellectual life is the pathway for understanding God and is what qualifies you to have something worthwhile to contribute to Christian theological discourse – as if there were no other way to know God and participate in a life of faith. I think Jesus would disagree.
Jesus’ response to the one who asked him to name the greatest commandment wasn’t “to love your books with all your heart and make others love them, too.” It was simply to love. To love God first and our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-40).
Of course, love must be grounded in knowledge. It’s hard to love someone we don’t know or understand – including God – but in our Christian understanding there are more fundamental pathways to the knowledge of God than intellectual pursuit. I daresay far more theologians have been led away from God or to heterodox views of the Catholic faith than those whose knowledge is obtained in other ways, such as prayer and interior conversation with the Lord.
It would be a defect of understanding to assume that being created in the image of God is only revealed in the human person’s ability to reason. Don’t we first know God in relationship – Father, Son and Holy Spirit? We, too, are created for relationship in the communion of our family and the Church.
Let’s turn to two saints – not the great intellectuals like Aquinas or Bonaventure or Augustine or Elizabeth of the Trinity, but simple saints whose knowledge of God came from their close relationship with Jesus.
St. Joseph of Cupertino
St. Joseph of Cupertino was a simple 17th-century Franciscan friar born into poverty who was considered slow witted, awkward and absent-minded. He acquired the nickname “the Gaper” because he tended to wander aimlessly with his mouth hanging open. He failed at the simplest of trades and struggled with the most basic tasks asked of him.
Even his own mother considered him a burden and treated him harshly.
The Conventual Franciscans took him in as a servant and had him care for their stables. He came to be known for his humility, obedience and profound mystical visions and levitations during periods of intense spiritual ecstasy. He went from being disparagingly called “the Gaper” and “the Gawker” to “the Flying Saint” or “the Flying Friar.” To keep him from gaining too much attention in any one place, his superiors often moved him around from friary to friary, yet he became extremely popular for his deep love and intense devotion. He is the patron saint of students and those with learning disabilities.
Was St. Joseph of Cupertino developmentally disabled? There was no such label then, but it would be fair at least to say he was “slow.” The only way he managed to make it through his seminary studies was because his examiner asked him to just explain to him the one thing he knew well. Managing that, he was finally ordained a deacon and eventually a priest.
St. Margaret of Castello
St. Margaret of Castello was born near Florence, Italy, in 1287 into a wealthy family. She had severe physical disabilities: She was blind and had many physical impairments, including dwarfism, a malformed arm, curvature of the spine and a short right leg. Her parents were ashamed of her and kept her hidden from sight for several years.
Eventually they took her to a shrine in Città di Castello that was known for miraculous healings, but her physical healing wasn’t in God’s providence. With no miracle, her parents abandoned her on the street. A community of nuns took her in for a time but eventually rejected her. Homeless again, she eventually became a Dominican tertiary and dedicated her life to prayer, penance and service to the sick, dying and prisoners.
She became renowned for her spiritual guidance and wisdom, and many sought her out for counsel. A multitude attended her funeral after she died in 1320, and numerous miracles began to be reported at her tomb. She is venerated now as patron saint of the poor, the unwanted and people with disabilities.
These are just two examples, but others, too, stand as witnesses that profound faith and contributions to the Church aren’t limited to those who can pursue intellectual knowledge of God.
There are some today with disabilities who feel called to serve the Church as a priest or religious, but they can’t find acceptance in a diocese or community. Perhaps vocation directors need to consider the lives of the saints and discover that some of the Church’s greatest treasures in religion and holy orders are those who were once kept on the peripheries, longing to serve Jesus and His Church but not considered because of their impairments.
Mark Bradford is the Word on Fire fellow for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He and his wife reside in the Philadelphia suburbs. This was excerpted from an article at www.wordonfire.org.