Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque

Even the most mundane things
like breaking an egg or
frying some onions in butter
triggered pure reverie;

had she ever had to work,
I doubt she could have held a job
more than a day anywhere--
Here her humility attained perfection.

She was a complete misfit in all things
except her devotion to Christ--
Why did God raise a simpleton
and reject our offerings?

I remember her, staring at the ceiling,
trying to peel a potato,
paring and paring till nothing was left--
She went on and gashed her fingers

till I screamed and stopped her--
As I took her hand and wrapped it
tightly to control the bleeding,
she looked at me and smiled--

"Forgive me, Sister, I'm trying,
but Jesus has made me
incapable of serving Him
except in adoration."

Yes, God made this idiot a saint.
Sister Marie de la Croix
who hated her for doing nothing
never doubted she was chosen--

Some way to manifest His love!
Yet anyone who saw her smile
knew whatever gifts one had
were nothing in comparison.

Very few of us suspected
grace could make a ninny wise;
our world fell like a shiny dish,
shattered by a child,

                                --Thomas Dorsett
                                first published in Slant, Summer 1990

A recording of the poem follows.

Notes:

This poem is about the mystery of personality, specifically the mystery of charisma.  To the chagrin of those who consider themselves clever but unappreciated, charisma is often not directly related to intelligence.  (One can have a relatively high I.Q. and a relatively low C.Q., --Charisma Quotient, that is.)

Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) had many visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Sacre Coeur).  After much reluctance, her visions were deemed genuine.  Commencing about 75 years after her death, the veneration of the Sacred Heart became widespread, and is still common among Catholics today.

This is what her biographer, Bougaud, had to say about her:

They tried her in the kitchen, but were forced to give it up as hopeless--everything dropped out of her hand... They tried to put her in the school, where the little girls cherished her, and cut pieces out of her clothes (for relics) as if she were already a saint, but where she was too absorbed inwardly to pay the necessary attention.  Poor dear sister!...

'Poor dear sister, indeed!" comments William James in Lecture 15 of The Varieties of Religious Experience.  "Amiable and good, but so feeble of intellect that it would be too much to ask of any of us...to feel anything but indulgent pity for the kind of saintship which she embodies."

And yet, as the passage about the little girls indicates, many adored, even venerated her during her lifetime.  Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque had charisma, no doubt about it.    How inexplicable, how amazing, how very odd!