Jesus repeats the Shema to his Jewish audience—love God with everything we have—and the rest adds up to loving our neighbor as ourselves. That is perfect charity and is what makes a Saint (Sanctus=holy). When he addresses the young man who asked what more he could do, Jesus said to sell his possessions and follow him, or drop everything and devote his life completely. In the Church’s eyes we hopefully hear Gods call (vocation) to a life of service by marriage or entering religious life. We can do either as well as we can but I don’t know that any one would describe it as boring. The hope is that as we serve in our vocation we would discover that the best gift (for us and our salvation) is when we learn to pour ourselves out and conform ourselves to Christ. And should we be free from attachments to attain heaven, we’ll continue to love fully and pour out our prayers for those still on the earthly journey.
God’s greatest desire for us is our happiness. Something deduced by Aquinas.
St Thomas Aquinas, St mother Teresa, St Augustine were hardly boring. There’s much to know about them…. Every year I offer a retreat on St mother Teresa’s work in Calcutta for our rcia class. My close friend and her husband run it. They met while serving in mother’s order years ago. The retreat is a teaching on mother’s spirituality. You’re invited:)
Well hey -- I actually did read Malcolm Muggeridge's "Something Beautiful for God" about Mother Theresa and it WAS interesting: but that was Malcolm's fault, in part. I might add here, since Malcolm made her interesting, that I purposely titled the essay "A major PR problem" -- not "A problem with the actual saints." I phrased it that way because (and I'm not just being kind) maybe the problem really IS a PR problem -- and the things we share about the saints are usually badly selected, or poorly framed.
Chesterton has a great biography on St Francis that I started reading again this morning. I mean, really genuinely great. But that's Chesty's doing -- nobody else has made St Francis interesting to me. So it may be that the Big Name Saints are boring. Or maybe the public and the writers (including me) are. Maybe I've got years and miles to go before I "get" them. You might as well pray for God to help me get there -- sooner than later.
Here’s a young man who is on his way to sainthood having just had his second miracle confirmed. Italian teenager and web developer. Maybe you two even crossed paths!
Well, there’s a lot going on there but basically:
Jesus repeats the Shema to his Jewish audience—love God with everything we have—and the rest adds up to loving our neighbor as ourselves. That is perfect charity and is what makes a Saint (Sanctus=holy). When he addresses the young man who asked what more he could do, Jesus said to sell his possessions and follow him, or drop everything and devote his life completely. In the Church’s eyes we hopefully hear Gods call (vocation) to a life of service by marriage or entering religious life. We can do either as well as we can but I don’t know that any one would describe it as boring. The hope is that as we serve in our vocation we would discover that the best gift (for us and our salvation) is when we learn to pour ourselves out and conform ourselves to Christ. And should we be free from attachments to attain heaven, we’ll continue to love fully and pour out our prayers for those still on the earthly journey.
God’s greatest desire for us is our happiness. Something deduced by Aquinas.
St Thomas Aquinas, St mother Teresa, St Augustine were hardly boring. There’s much to know about them…. Every year I offer a retreat on St mother Teresa’s work in Calcutta for our rcia class. My close friend and her husband run it. They met while serving in mother’s order years ago. The retreat is a teaching on mother’s spirituality. You’re invited:)
🙏💝
Well hey -- I actually did read Malcolm Muggeridge's "Something Beautiful for God" about Mother Theresa and it WAS interesting: but that was Malcolm's fault, in part. I might add here, since Malcolm made her interesting, that I purposely titled the essay "A major PR problem" -- not "A problem with the actual saints." I phrased it that way because (and I'm not just being kind) maybe the problem really IS a PR problem -- and the things we share about the saints are usually badly selected, or poorly framed.
Chesterton has a great biography on St Francis that I started reading again this morning. I mean, really genuinely great. But that's Chesty's doing -- nobody else has made St Francis interesting to me. So it may be that the Big Name Saints are boring. Or maybe the public and the writers (including me) are. Maybe I've got years and miles to go before I "get" them. You might as well pray for God to help me get there -- sooner than later.
Great article, as usual.
Here’s a young man who is on his way to sainthood having just had his second miracle confirmed. Italian teenager and web developer. Maybe you two even crossed paths!
His feast day was last Saturday.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Acutis
Seems like a really sweet kid. I'll look forward to meeting him