The Saint is a short
story written by Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In that story, a man named Margarito Duarte always
carries around with him a small coffin with a dead body that never
decomposes. It is the body of his
daughter who died at the age of seven because of a fever. He had to disinter the body because a dam
that was going to be constructed required the acquisition of the parish cemetery. All the parishioners disinterred the tombs of
their beloved so that the bones could be buried in a new cemetery. Margarito found the bones of his wife who had
died giving birth to their daughter. But
when he opened the tomb of his daughter he was in for a shock. his daughter’s body had remained intact eleven
years after the burial. His daughter
looked alive with her eyes open and sparkling.
Margarito, who had not studied beyond the primary school, believed what
the villagers said: “the incorruptibility of the body was an unequivocal sign
of sainthood.” Even the local bishop
agreed.
Margarito
takes the coffin to Rome. He makes a
supplication to the Pope to declare his daughter a saint. He waits for an answer from the Vatican. The Vatican is no less than God especially in
answering supplications, especially those concerning sainthood. Popes come and go. In fact, Margarito waits 22 years and four
Popes from Pius XII onward come and go.
Margarito still waits. After 22
years of waiting, Margarito says, “I’ve waited so long it can’t be much longer
now.” And Marquez concludes the story
with the words, “he (Margarito) had spent twenty-two years fighting for the
legitimate cause of his own canonization.”
Margarito
is the real saint, according to Marquez.
He is a saint because of his single-minded devotion to perceived
sanctity as well as his faith and hope.
What else is religion? What else
is saintliness?
These
were the thoughts that ran through my mind as I read about many godmen in the
last few weeks. Some of the best
articles about contemporary
godmen and other vampires can be found in the recent issue of the Frontline.
One can always visit godmen’s ashrams
and find out more ‘truths’ personally.
What
makes Marquez think of Margarito as a saint?
I
think of Sisyphus as a saint. Sisyphus
is a Greek mythological character. He
spent his entire life pushing a rock uphill in order to challenge the gods who
had punished him with that task of pushing the rock. He knew that he would never succeed. The gods would always push the rock downhill
just as he reached the summit of the hill.
Yet Sisyphus climbed down the hill without despair and the spirit of
daring in order to pick up his rock once again.
That daring with its single-minded devotion as well as the faith in
himself (minus any hope, though) makes Sisyphus a saint for me. Conventional religions will have problems
with Sisyphus’ faith in himself rather than the gods as well as his lack of
hope.
Let
us take an example from a very conventional religion, Catholicism. Simeon Stylite (390-459). He is canonized as a saint by the Catholic
Church. What did he do in his life? He lived on top of a pillar whose height he
kept on increasing as years went by.
Single-minded devotion to God. He
hated women. He hated even men! This is what the famous historian, Edward
Gibbon writes about the saint:
In this last and lofty station, the Syrian Anachoret resisted the heat of thirty summers, and the cold of as
many winters. Habit and exercise instructed him to maintain his dangerous
situation without fear or giddiness, and successively to assume the different
postures of devotion. He sometimes prayed in an erect attitude, with his
outstretched arms in the figure of a cross, but his most familiar practice was
that of bending his meager skeleton from the forehead to the feet; and a
curious spectator, after numbering twelve hundred and forty-four repetitions,
at length desisted from the endless account. The progress of an ulcer in his
thigh might shorten, but it could not disturb, this celestial life;
and the patient Hermit expired, without descending from his column.
What
do the sages hope to achieve in their solitary hermitages in the Himalayas? Single-minded devotion.
Single-minded
devotion is saintliness. That is just
what Marquez was trying to convey through the story.
But
devotion to what? Not to sex or wealth
or political/manipulative power.
Devotion
to some absurdity.
Life
is absurd, asserted the philosophers of the Absurd like Albert Camus. Can you fight it with single-minded devotion
like Sisyphus?
PS. I’ll be totally away from
blogging for a week as I’m an acolyte of single-minded devotion. I’ll be away on a certain duty which will
hopefully refresh me as much as the rock refreshed Sisyphus.
Single-minded devotion and focus is indeed saintly.
ReplyDeleteBlessed are those who can manage...
All the best to you to stay away from Blogging for a week...I know it'll be tough!
But, accomplishing your task should make it worthwhile! :)
Staying away will be difficult...I know! :)
ReplyDeleteRegards
Sammya