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Catholic

Back in the USSR!

March 29, 2011 by Heather King

Continued from Page 1

After which I also read her Flame in the Snow: A Life of Saint Serafim of Sarov.

So while I may not be able to quote you chapter and verse of Russia's political history, I know their long history of solitary pilgrimage: St. Serafim, the anonymous wandering monk who wrote The Way of a Pilgrim, Catherine de Hueck Doherty. I know their long history of loving and seeking Christ. I know that they have suffered, unbelievably.

I know (because I'm reading French philosopher René Girard's The Scapegoat) that Kierkegaard said "The mob is a lie" and that [Swiss literary critic Jean] "Starobinski notes that evil in the Gospels is always on the side of plurality and the crowd," to which I would add the collective, the bloc, the movement, the ideology. I know that the people who rail against religion cannot have looked too closely at what happens when those in power try to stamp it out. I know that simply converting from communism to capitalism isn't going to sate Russia's spiritual hunger, because look at us.

I know that estimates for the number of people who died in Stalin's purges, deportations, exiles, famines, and prison camps are estimated to be between 4 and 10 million.

I know the way I purge, deport, and exile in my own heart and that is why my plea, all day, every day, is the Jesus Prayer from The Way of a Pilgrim:"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner."

I know this line from Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward: "There is great satisfaction in remaining faithful; perhaps it is the greatest satisfaction of all. Even if no one knows about your faithfulness, even if no one values it."

I know that Dostoevsky said: "Humble charity is a terrible force; it is the greatest force in the world." I know that Christ, nailed to the cross, is humble charity incarnate, and that the Resurrection is eternal.

But hunh. Wow. I'll be darned. 1991. You learn something new every day.

Page: 2 of 2

3/29/2011 4:00:00 AM

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About Heather King

Heather King is an ex-lawyer, ex-drunk Catholic convert with three memoirs: Parched (the dark years); Redeemed (crawling toward the light); and Shirt of Flame (forthcoming - her year of wandering around Koreatown, L.A. "with" St. Thérèse of Lisieux). You can find Heather on Facebook. She blogs at shirtofflame.blogspot.com.

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