Saints and Modern Folks

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 5, 4 February 1925, Page 57

Saints and Modern Folks

Among even some Catholics is it believed that the saints were men who lived in a specially congenial atmosphere like hot-house plants, or that those of them who were buffeted about in the world were granted special favors which are denied ordinary mortals. We all are prone to take a detached interest in the saints because their lives seem to contain little that fits in with our modern mode of living. The thought of sack cloth and ashes, scourging and other self-imposed severities makes us shudder. If to imitate the saints means to resort to such extreme measures, then the task, to our mind, is a discouraging one. However, our conception of the inspiration that we are to draw from the lives of the saints is wrong. In the Queen's Work, Rev. Joseph P. Conroy tells us the reasons why. “Our notion of following in the footsteps of the saints is based on a mistake,” he says. The question we ask ourselves, ‘ Must I do that?’ shows this plainly. If we must do everything the saints do, or that any saint does, then we must follow out the imitation in everything. Accordingly, we should have to say: St. Aloysius lived in Italy; therefore I must live in Italy. He was a prince and he spoke Latin fluently; therefore I must be a prince and must speak Latin fluently.’ In the same way, looking at St. Christopher, we conclude, ‘I must be a man of tremendous muscle.’ And a moment after, considering Pancratius, wo decide that we ought to be anything but gigantic. St. Simeon Sty lil es lived on a pillar. And if I follow out my theory of imitating the saints I shall have to do both these things at the same time. It is a labyrinth I shall never get out of. “But we should never have got into it. Our idea has been wrong from the start. The truth is that it is not the precise individual thing a saint does which we imitate. Rather it is his way of doing things that we strive to followhis spirit, his determination, his perseverance, his fruitful use of the material he finds at hand to work with. A man building a house, for example, inspects other houses. He goes over a great number of them until he picks upon one which comes close to what he would like. He has gathered points from all the others, and even the one he chooses he cannot imitate perfectly. Why not? Well, the location is different from what his can be. The grounds about the house, the light exposure, the approach—a thousand details in short, must of necessity be other than in the model. He has more chances for certain effects in one place, not so many in another. He learns from the model house, but does the best he can with his own under the circumstances. “In something;- however, he can duplicate namely, in the material for building. The quality of stone, the grade of sand, of glass, of wood, of ground for the foundation, of workmen to put up the house. ■ These are essentials —the stuff that goes to make up a house. The other things are accidentals. He may use them or not.

“So it is with our imitation of the saints. It isn’t the external things we do that count in imitating the life of a saint. Circumstances differ in every life, and we cannot control circumstances. What really counts is the spirit we act with. That is the building material of the soul. Not the mere external movements of hands and feet constitute imitation. It isn’t a question of attitudes. But the putting our soul in the proper condition to follow God and to do our full duty—that is the stuff of life, the underlying essential of all work. To follow, not what a saint did, but to grasp why he did it, to approach and to feel the motive that lay at the back of his work, to come near the fire of his first courage, his supreme fearlessness, and to warm ourselves at that fire of the love* of God there, and then to turn back to our own work, different work altogether on the exterior, and to put into it something of that same spirit and that divine fire —this is to imitate any saint. “You may not be able to face your house in the same direction he did nor build it as high or as extensive, nor with the same architecture, but one thing you can do; You can have your house as substantial, as solid, as useful in its way, if you get the materials into it. And that is all we arc asked to do in imitating anw saint. Get the materials for a saint’s life info your own. What are they? A clean conscience, a strong grip on the idea of duly, a courage that doesn’t shake like a leaf under the first little trial, and a constant realisation that God is near us and helping us if wo will only let Him. “If you get this much from a saint’s example, that’s enough. Don’t worry about anything else he did. Each saint had hi s own way of doing things, and each had different things to do, just as you have things to do that nobody else ever had or will have. Saints had their peculiarities, too. So have you. Peculiarities aren’t sins, but you don’t have to imitate them. Besides, what would be perfectly natural for one person often would be a freak in' another. As I said, these things depend on circumstances, and are accidentals. You don’t have to watch them. But you must get at the spirit under them if you would imitate the saint who did them. And under every surface of a saint’s life you will discover, back of all variations — ness,, drive, or, as boys prefer to put it, ‘ punch.’ Get that, and get it in the right direction, and you are imitating (be saints excellently.”