Some said: "He is a good man"; others
said: "No, he is leading the people astray." John 7:12
When we meet a saint we are not discovering at
long last an ideal, lived and realized, which had already been formed within
us. A saint is not the perfection of humanity—or of the superman—incarnate in a
particular man. The marvel is of a different order. What we find is a new life,
a new sphere of existence, with unsuspected depths—but also with a resonance
hitherto unknown to us and now at last revealed. We are shown a new country, a
home we had originally ignored, and as soon as we perceive it we recognize it
as older and truer than anything we had known and with claims upon our heart.
No feeling of self-satisfaction invades us; we do
not see our noblest image reflected in a mirror. This is not the fulfilment of
our loveliest dream—or rather there is something further, which is not only
more beautiful: we are simultaneously attracted and repelled, and the more we
are repelled the more we are attracted. We experience an ambiguous sensation as
of something at the same time very near and very far; something disturbing,
troubling and at the same time obscurely desired. The feeling is a mixed one,
compounded of a sense of strangeness and of supreme fulfilment beyond all
desire. We are both disconcerted and ravished, and the delight we experience is
never without a sense of dread. Our worldliness reacts to the threat. Our
secret connivance with evil is aroused. We are on our guard. If we had begun to
regard ourselves as perfect in some respect, we shall be doubly tempted to
reject the provoking vista which is going to oblige us to recognize our misery
and, more than that, the wretchedness of what we call perfection.
But in all this we are not left to ourselves, as
spectators. It acts upon us as a provocation. It is a summons to choose and to
act, unveiling our most hidden tendencies. . . . All of a sudden the universe
seems different; it is the stage of a vast drama, and we, at its heart, are
compelled to play our part.
If there were more saints in the world, the spiritual
struggle would only be more intense. As the Kingdom of God becomes more
manifest, it calls forth more fervent adherents—and, correspondingly, more
violent opposition. The heightened urgency of the situation provokes tension
and becomes the occasion of resounding conflicts.
For if we are more or less at peace in the world,
it is simply that we are tepid.
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