HOLY FOOLS

HOLY FOOLS

If anyone among you considers themselves wise in this age, let them become a fool so as to become wise. (1 Cor. 3:18)

There are no definitions of fool that would encourage anyone to be one, and yet this is what St. Paul suggests.  The thing is a fool, as a rule, is usually someone who can’t control their actions. But a fool is also someone who is blind to the reactions of others.  Paul considers himself, and all the people of The Way, to be that kind of fool.  To preach and teach the lessons of Christ with total conviction no matter how people react.  Secretly, many people think you would be a fool to do that. 

In Russian, Yurodivi means Holy Fool.  Two shining examples of that are St. Basil, the Russian and St. Francis, the Italian. These men were both regarded as fools.  They had decided all the world’s trappings were keeping them from God, so they divested themselves of those distractions.  They did some outlandish things, but all the time they kept to their goal of convincing people that God is ever present and ever loving.  

Some people laughed at them. Some people wanted them locked up. Some people were terrified of them as though their behavior was catching.  Still, other people revered them and to this day, their names are written large in the litany of the Saints.  Basil once threw a slab of meat in front of ,no less a personage than, Ivan the Terrible during Lent.  The Tsar recoiled at meat being put in front of him.  “It is Lent,he cried.  Basil retorts, “Why do you quail at meat in Lent when you do not hesitate to murder your own people?” Through the grace of God, he was not beheaded on the spot.  Their dramatic gestures, no matter how shocking, always had to do with revealing Christ and focusing people’s attention on the Will of God. 

In the eyes of the world, a person would be a fool to believe that someone, out of the quintillion people who have passed away, actually died and came back. You would be a fool to think you should turn the other cheek. You would be a fool to believe that bread and wine could become body and blood merely by repeating words spoken 2,000 years ago.

But we do believe it. If that is what being fool is, so be it. We are fools for Christ. It’s the kind of fool you want to be, that you need to be.  

You begin by accepting Paul’s message that we must not think of ourselves as superior to anyone.  We should accept this truth in our hearts; everyone is of the same value to God.  Then follow the example of Basil and Francis- well, perhaps not all of their examples. Tell of Jesus, his love and compassion, which reflect the true nature of God.  If someone tells you that you are a fool, you will know you’re doing something right.

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin OPA