Book Review: My Life with the Saints by James Martin, SJ

“So what?” asks the former GE executive turned Jesuit priest. “So what?” asks the pilgrim on a journey of becoming, a pilgrim on the way in the company of Saints.

“So what?”

This poignant question is posed to a culture of choice, people who are presumed to care more about American Idol and the latest Apple personal electronic than with the lives of Saints whose personal struggles may offer guidance to overcoming contemporary struggle. It has been asked, “So what” and herein begins a tapestry woven with the riches of James Martin’s experience.

Befriending the Saints in this My Life with the Saints, is a threshold to friendship with James Martin. This is truly a journey of friends growing to deeper levels with one another, growing to appreciate the darkness and the light with one another. Here, in this memoir, we are offered a prophetic illustration of attention to introspection that blurs the lines between what is the author’s personal recollection and the inclusion of historical knowledge.

The Saints found James Martin and he responded to their gentle invitation. In seemingly unlikely places they crept into Martin’s life: the mindless changing of the remote only to stumble upon Thomas Merton; in the tireless efforts of making a new community home Thérèse pops up. It is possible to befriend the Saints; it is possible to welcome them with hospitality into our beings so we may continue to reflect their wisdom in the world. The Saints and Martin weave themselves so seamlessly through one another that where one begins and ends is difficult to discern.

Martin draws his readers into the exploration of his personal journey. We are beckoned out of our individual selves, our independent self-sufficiency, into the dimensions of relationship with the sacred and profane. We are reminded that in our most natural state we are with the Divine and we rest in the here and now patiently awaiting the continued unfolding of God in our midst. With the Saints we are invited to be active in our own individual and communal spiritual development knowing that this activity is an evolution of constant discernment.

It seems that Martin’s journey of becoming through the pages of My Life with the Saints is more about a chronicle of personal growth than about the lives that will be touched by investing the time in his book. Martin shares his appreciation for the Saints and the varied ways and times they have entered and shaped his life. The Saints are friends and they are mentors. To James Martin I say, thank you for modeling the integrity of vulnerability, for opening a personal journey to the world that knows Divinity and yet does not always seek to cultivate the awareness of God in our midst. As these thoughts come to a close let us turn to a discovery Martin made with a friend during the early years of his spiritual unfolding:

“The road we seek is often the road we have already found.”

Wake up and open up to the road before you, seek friendship in wise souls, and go in the Spirit of God, always.

Katie Cranor
Bernardin Scholar ’07-‘08