THE SAINTS

THE SAINTS*

In pursuit of the truth - www.http://www.cinopsbegoneblogspot.com - Friday, Aug. 28, 2015

 

    The saints are like older brothers and sisters to us in the family of God. They want to take us by the hand and lead us.The encourage us to say; "If this or that person can do it, why can't I?"

 

     These are the words St. Augustine thought he heard at the time of his conversion, and they were among the last encouragements he needed for risking the leap into faith and into God's love.

 

     Throughout the centuries, there has been hardly another saint who has remained as close to us, as understandable, as St. Augustine.

 

    In his writings, we encounter all the depths and heights of the human spirit, all the questioning and seeking and searching that we also experience today. Not without reason has he been called the first modern man.

 

     Nietzsche once said the could not abide St. Augustine - he seemed too plebeian and common. There is some justification for Nietzsche's attitude, but it is precisely in these qualities that we discover in St. Augustine's true Christian greatness.

 

     He could have been a aristocrat of the spirit, but for the sake of Christ and for the sake of his fellow men, in whom we saw Christ coming toward him, he left the ivory tower of the gifted intellectual in order to be wholly man among men, a servant of the servants of God.

 

     For the sake of Christ he emptied himself of his great learning. For the sake of Christ he became increasingly an ordinary person and the servant of all. In doing so he became truly a saint.

 

     For Christian holiness does not consist in being superhuman and in having an extraordinary talent or greatness that others do not have. Christian holiness is simply the obedience that puts us at God's disposal wherever he calls us.

 

* Meditation for Friday, Aug. 28th, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Co-Workers of the Truth,  Meditations for Every Day of the Year, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1992

 

George H. Kubeck