Saints are not supermen

By Richard Leoni Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Today is the feast day -- memorial, actually -- of St. Josemaría Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei:

Saints are men and women of God, souls identified with Jesus Christ. This is the conclusion we reach when we approach the life of Saint Josemaría Escrivá.

But saints are not supermen, nor are they people out of the ordinary, whom it is impossible to capture in words. It is precisely to Saint Josemaría that we owe a fundamental teaching in this regard: “Let's not deceive ourselves: in our life we will find vigor and victory and depression and defeat. This has always been true of the earthly pilgrimage of Christians, even of those we venerate on the altars. Do you remember Peter, Augustine, or Francis? I have never liked biographies of saints which naïvely — but also with a lack of sound doctrine — present their deeds as if they had been confirmed in grace from birth. No. The true life stories of Christian heroes resemble our own experience: they fought and won; they fought and lost. And then, repentant, they returned to the fray.”

The struggle to identify ourselves with Christ, however, is a difficult, sincere, joyful, and persevering endeavor. But, above all, it is a work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love, which makes us into children of God in his Son.

Several years ago I participated as a cooperator with Opus Dei and enjoyed it immensely. We met monthly on Saturday mornings at the nearby home of a member and prayed, read from the Gospel, and then listened to a reflection. Unfortunately, my fatherly responsibilities have increased and the cooperator circle convenes a bit further away, so I haven't attended in quite some time. And hats off to the Catholic Telegraph's Tricia Hempel for running a brief profile this week of St. Josemaria, a lightning rod for dissident Catholics who, if LTEs are any indication, make up a significant chunk of the CT's readers.

2 Comments:

At 2:51 PM, Chris Sullivan said...

Unfortunately, my fatherly responsibilities have increased and the cooperator circle convenes a bit further away, so I haven't attended in quite some time.

Yeah, me too.

My wife and I miss the time we had with Opus Dei. These days its just too hard to actively participate.

God Bless

At 2:36 PM, CourageMan said...

One of my most valuable spiritual readings ever has been St. Josemaria's "Christ Is Passing By," which I've quoted extensively at my site on more than one occasion.

The precise passage from there that begins "Let's not deceive ourselves..." is one of my favorites, precisely because I'm both a man in whom certain unwanted facts persist and a man with very exacting standards. "No to all that," the saint says. I need to hear that every day.