Why does the Church occasionally canonize people whose lives are not only completely at odds with civil society but who often hardly fit ecclesiastical society either? The answer must be that holy fools dramatize something about God that most Christians find embarrassing but that we vaguely recognize is crucial information.
It is the special vocation of holy fools to live out in a rough, literal, breathtaking way the "hard sayings" of Jesus.
— Jim Forest, Praying with Icons