Hagiography: The Musical

I have a great idea for a Broadway show. It was inspired by the old saying, "Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company." Most of us can understand that sentiment! Who wants to spend eternity with a bunch of sanctimonious, self-righteous people? What we all keep forgetting is that actual SAINTS are not like that. Ever read the autobiographies of St. Augustine or St. Theresa of Avila? These are some VERY cool people! They were far from perfect in this life, and they knew it, but they were hard at work at being what God wanted them to be, and I for one would have loved to hang out with them and toss back a beer or two. I like to think Heaven will be more like that: a lot of fascinating people having great conversation over a few drinks and a fabulous meal that goes on forever. Because, really, the people who are actually in Hell are not exactly people you want to hang out with. I don't know what happens to the sanctimonious people, but as Richard Bonomo always reminds me, everyone is perfected in Heaven, and being sanctimonious is not a symptom of perfection.

The whole hagiography thing hit home for me a few months ago when I was reading the meditation of the day in Magnificat (a magazine worth checking out). It was an amazing reading about why it is so foolish to think of Mary as some simpering girl you would never want to meet. I figured it was by a woman and thought, "You go, Sister!" wondering if it were Theresa of Avila or Catherine of Siena. I was stunned to learn it was St. Therese of Liseaux! It just goes to show you should never judge a saint by her most devoted followers. Poor Therese - a victim of the same sugar coating she deplored! Here she is a brilliant theologian, a Doctor of the Church, and all I had known of her was The Little Flower who rains down roses on those who pray for her intercession. This is why we should learn about saints from their own writings. And so my idea for Hagiography: The Musical was born.

Plot Summary: There is a priest who devotes his life to researching the lives of those the Church is considering for canonization. He is hindered in his research by people who focus on apocryphal and downright weird stories instead of the real merits of the believers' lives. Song-and-dance numbers would feature people telling this priest how holy a person was because she had bees flying out of her mouth, or because she refused to play with the other children and would only build little altars, or because he would float up into the air in the middle of Mass. The priest would alternate verses about how the person was actually holy because she bore suffering bravely, he offered his life up for someone else, etc., but the other people sing louder and drown him out. Discouraged, the priest falls ill and dies. When he arrives in Heaven, St. Peter thanks him for all his hard work for the Church. "Check it out," he says, and they both watch as the priest is being canonized. His scholarship and dedication is extolled by the clergy, but the final scene is the crowd outside the church singing about some ridiculous and patently false story from his boyhood that they think makes him sound holy but that would get most children trotted off to a child psychologist. The new saint turns to St. Peter, who shrugs and says, "Hagiography! We can't none of us escape it!" The End.

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