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December 31, 2004
7/8/04 - The Ordinariness of the Saints
Steven at Flos Carmeli always has some great posts, I just never have time to get over there. Although today I visited and I love this piece! It reminds me of when my spiritual director told me that God is able to use our faults and weaknesses as means to reaching greater virtue and sanctity. For example, St. Francis de Sales had a fiery temper yet he became known as the "gentle saint".
Steven also makes an excellent point in reminding us that we need to stop trying to be someone else and be the saint that God has called us to be. It is one thing to admire and receive encouragement through the example of historical saints but it is important to draw from it a lesson that we can use in our own life. Not to duplicate their life but to draw inspiration on how to strive for holiness in our own unique life and circumstances. But Steven says it better than I could so read on.
...Too often, it seems, we may do the same with Saint's lives. We look upon their extraordinary accomplishments and then embellish them so that they become not so much role models as distant figures of impossible faith and piety. We neglect their ordinariness. We admire them, but we can come up with an extraordinary plexus of reasons why we couldn't possible emulate them in any way. How often have I heard, "Oh, I couldn't be like St. Th�r�se, she was so holy from such a young age." So who is asking you to be like St. Th�r�se? We already have one of those, and there are those in the world who would maintain that one is more than enough. (I used to be among them--no longer). Continued...
God gives us Saints not so much for slavish imitation as for encouragement. No one is called to be another St. Francis, St. Benedict, St. Anything. Each person is called to be a unique Saint, just as they are a unique person. The canonized Saints give us a glimpse of how others have achieved this. How they have achieved heroic sanctity despite a less than heroic start; how they have come to love God when they started by despising Him; how their own persons and personalities are used by God to erect new Saints and new heroes, new examples that tell us--"You can do it."After all, what is remarkable about St. Th�r�se? She grew up a bourgeoise French lady, a potential snob, in a jansenist French society, overwhelmed with the exceeding wrath of God. She was treacly sweet and had a hellish temper at the same time and was stubborn as an ox. Nothing here particularly remarkable. And in that very fact lies our best hope. Just as there is nothing particularly remarkable about any of us, so too God can use that milquetoast or wanness and convert it into heroic virtue.
When I reflect on St. Th�r�se this is what I most often think about--her humble beginnings did not stand in the way of her storming heaven, asking for, and receiving the gift of holiness, the gift of love. So what stops me? And when I think like this I realize that there is very, very little in the way--only myself. And if Jesus is willing, I can be healed.
Posted by bobbi at December 31, 2004 12:00 AM
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