A few years ago, a friend asked me a surprising question: how are we supposed to imitate the lives of the saints when their stories are so diverse?<\/p>\n
But what surprised me even more than this question was the answer that came out of my mouth: \u201cAfter eight years of writing about the saints, day in and day out,\u201d I said, \u201cI find myself attempting less and less to imitate them. But I do want to siga<\/i> them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Esto es lo que quer\u00eda decir. Lo m\u00e1s natural es querer imitar a los santos, encontrar al santo cuya vida se parezca m\u00e1s a la tuya y luego tratar de encontrar en su historia algunas ayudas para vivir tus propios dramas cotidianos. En este sentido, siempre me he sentido atra\u00edda por Elizabeth Ann Seton. Como Elizabeth, he vivido una vida dif\u00edcil como esposa y madre. Ella perdi\u00f3 a sus dos hijas por enfermedad. Yo perd\u00ed a una hija peque\u00f1a por enfermedad. Ella luch\u00f3 por mantener a sus hijos cerca de ella, y por mantener a sus hijos en la Iglesia. Yo tambi\u00e9n he luchado por la educaci\u00f3n de mis hijos y por mantener su v\u00ednculo con la fe.<\/p>\n
Y me ha parecido natural comparar nuestras vidas y luego prescribirme a m\u00ed mismo el tipo de cosas que funcionaron para Isabel. Ella anhelaba la Eucarist\u00eda, as\u00ed que har\u00e9 que la comuni\u00f3n frecuente forme parte de mi vida. Ella ten\u00eda devoci\u00f3n a la Virgen Madre, as\u00ed que yo har\u00e9 lo mismo.<\/p>\n
But sooner or later, this work of copying the life of a saint founders on one thing: the reality of my own call from God. I have a real and unique call that is worked out in time, through circumstances both outside of me and inside of me. And my circumstances don’t always match up to Elizabeth\u2019s. Maybe my job makes daily Mass impossible. Maybe I fall asleep every time I pray the Rosary. Whatever it is, I start to find this way of \u201cimitation\u201d impossible.<\/p>\n
In that moment, I have a few options open to me. I can keep going with the imitation, white-knuckling my way through these difficult practices. I can quit the whole project, having discovered that the saints are \u201cimpossible to imitate.\u201d Or, I can transition from imitating to siguiente<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Despu\u00e9s de<\/i> means beginning to get to the heart of what a saint is teaching us through their lives. It\u2019s less about copying someone else\u2019s life and more about immersing oneself in his or her way of being and way of seeing the world. It is beginning to see with the \u201ceyes of the heart\u201d (Ephesians 1:18).<\/p>\n
This becomes clear when we look at the life of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, known worldwide as \u201cPadre Pio.\u201d The Franciscan Friar was best known for bearing the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, in his own flesh for more than 50 years and for his ministry in the confessional, where he spent up to fifteen hours a day and manifested an uncanny ability to read hearts.<\/p>\n
\u00bfC\u00f3mo se puede imitar a un hombre as\u00ed? \u00bfDe qu\u00e9 manera podr\u00edamos copiar su vida? Y eso es justo lo que quiero decir: nosotros can\u2019t<\/i> imitar al Padre P\u00edo. Pero nosotros puede<\/i> seguir sus pasos.<\/p>\n
Shortly after Padre Pio\u2019s death, Pope Paul VI assessed his life in this way: \u201cWhat renown he has! What an international following! And why? Because he was a philosopher? A scholar? A person of means? No, because he said Mass in a humble manner, heard confessions from morning to night. And because he was Our Lord’s representative, certified with the stigmata.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul VI went to the heart of Padre Pio\u2019s mission: he was \u201ccertified with the stigmata.\u201d Let\u2019s think about that. A man who has been \u201cgifted\u201d with the stigmata has been given a very heavy cross. Besides the obvious physical toll \u2013 those two-centimeter-wide wounds in Pio\u2019s hand, feet, and sides oozed blood his entire life \u2013 he suffered unremitting pain and never-ending attention. Crowds of people lined up to go to confession to him or hear him say Mass, and untold multitudes viewed the many photos of Padre Pio that went out to the whole world. Pio\u2019s life was that of a man stretched out on a cross for everyone to see, for anyone to judge.<\/p>\n
What utter exposure! What embarrassment, to be bleeding and to never be able to stop it! What mortification, to be gawked at constantly, to be examined and re-examined by curious doctors! The only thing that could possibly explain Pio\u2019s living in this unlivable human situation, bearing this unbearable sort of life, is a divine presence holding him up, a superhuman force acting in him. That force was Jesus Christ. Christ manifested himself physically through Padre Pio; Christ reconciled and forgave through him.<\/p>\n
But was Pio absent in this exchange? Was he merely a static conduit of grace? By no means. What was at play in every event of Padre Pio\u2019s life was his own will, his human freedom, manifested constantly in precisely the way Paul VI pointed out: oraci\u00f3n<\/i> y humildad<\/i>. La oraci\u00f3n era el lugar donde se expon\u00eda activamente ante Dios, ofreci\u00e9ndole toda su humanidad para lo que \u00c9l estaba obrando a trav\u00e9s de \u00e9l. Y con humildad, reconoc\u00eda sus propias limitaciones, acept\u00e1ndolas una y otra vez.<\/p>\n
Padre Pio was utterly human. He had all the failings we all have. But in the face of God\u2019s invitation, he let go. This was not a once-in-a-lifetime thing, a graced moment of illumination. It was a journey, a marathon, Saint Paul\u2019s \u201crace.\u201d As a young seminarian, Pio\u2019s struggle to accept his vocation was played out as literal wrestling matches with demons in the night. And the struggles did not end when he became a priest, received the stigmata, and began his ministry in the confessional. Rather, Padre Pio admitted how hard it was for him to feel charitable toward the men and women that came to him:<\/p>\n
Si conozco a alguien que est\u00e1 afligido en el alma o en el cuerpo, \u00bfqu\u00e9 no har\u00eda yo con el Se\u00f1or para verle liberado de estos males? Tomar\u00eda libremente sobre m\u00ed todas sus penas para librarle, dej\u00e1ndole la recompensa de sus sufrimientos, si el Se\u00f1or me lo permitiera. S\u00e9 que \u00e9ste es un favor muy especial de Dios, porque otras veces, aunque por la misericordia de Dios nunca he dejado de socorrer a los necesitados, naturalmente me compadec\u00eda poco de sus miserias.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is the true human drama: Padre Pio describes the conflicts of his own heart. Like all the rest of us, his heart goes in two opposing directions. He had a good and beautiful desire to love God and to free people from suffering \u2013 and at the exact same time, a repugnance of others, an admitted lack of interest in their problems. What makes the connection between the two is Pio\u2019s own openness, his free \u201cyes\u201d \u2013 \u201cby the mercy of God.\u201d<\/p>\n
El Padre P\u00edo nos muestra que nothing in the world is more powerful than this \u201cyes.\u201d<\/i> Nothing is more freeing to our own souls than our \u201cyes\u201d freely given. That is what we learn from siguiente<\/i> Padre P\u00edo, de ir al coraz\u00f3n de su vida y descubrir d\u00f3nde reside la verdadera tensi\u00f3n, la verdadera lucha.<\/p>\n
But there is one more thing: Padre Pio shows us that this race is worth running, this tension is worth living. A Google search shows how many people Padre Pio helped in his lifetime and how many he continues to reach through the prayer groups that he founded. But his reward is not just something that came at the end, when he finally reached heaven. Rather, Padre Pio reassures us that when we open the channels of grace through the offering of our lives to Christ, bringing him our pathetic dramas, our petty sins, our shortcomings, our distaste for so much, we start to live something wondrous. We can trust Padre Pio here: \u201cThe cross doesn\u2019t overwhelm; if its weight makes one stagger, its power gives relief.\u201d<\/p>\n
This dynamic of prayer and offering, the power of the \u201cyes,\u201d is a pervasive theme in the life of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton as well. In Elizabeth we see a different life, different circumstances, and a different mode of expression \u2013 yet the same creative freedom followed by the same fullness. What Padre Pio calls \u201cpower\u201d and \u201crelief\u201d Elizabeth calls, in a letter to her friend Antonio, \u201cpeace\u201d:<\/p>\n
Sometimes the harassed mind, wearied with continual contradictions to all it would most covet \u2013 solitude! silence! peace! \u2013 sighs for a change; but five minutes\u2019 recollection procures an immediate act of resignation, convinced that this is the day of salvation for me. And if, like a coward, I should run away from the field of battle, I am sure the very peace I seek would fly from me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Peace! Relief! Power! Love! Don\u2019t we want them all? This is the promise that is held out to us in the lives of the saints. In Padre Pio\u2019s \u201cyes,\u201d in Elizabeth\u2019s \u201cact of resignation,\u201d we glimpse the possibility of an undreamt-of fullness, the true joy of being a follower of Christ.<\/p>\n
The beauty of the diversity of the saints is that we can see this drama of the human soul played out in so many different ways, in men and women, rich and poor, laypersons and consecrated, in all times and in all circumstances. Yet in each, we see the same fundamental desires \u2013 the desires we all share. We can see the value of running that same race, and the glory of that same prize.<\/p>\n
I frankly urge you: find the saint who most interests you, who most attracts you. Bring your human drama into the mix. Let yourself be molded by your saint\u2019s way of action, his prayer and offering, her \u201cyes,\u201d freely given. And follow that saint to the glorious end.<\/p>\n