Volcanoes of Love
Do you ever feel that if you were to become more Christlike, you'd lose something? That you'd have to give up "who you really are" and become like the Stoics of ancient times? This myth has been around a long time...probably since Adam and Eve thought that they wouldn't reach their full potential if they obeyed God and resisted the temptation to eat the forbidden fruit. Some people think they'd have to turn to stone like the statue shown above, in order to resist their human passions. Each month, I share a piece through this mailing list about a saint and his/her temperament. St. Mary Magdalene's feast day was last week, and she has the longest chapter in my upcoming book, "Piety and Personality: The Temperaments of the Saints" from www.tanbooks.com. That could be because she's a favorite of mine, and it's hard to stop talking about her once I get started. But another reason could be that she has such a passionate temperament, and therefore gives us a brilliant example of taming those passions and directing them to Christ, instead of to ourselves and our own desires. "One day [a man on shipboard] asserted that, in order to become converted to better things, he would have to suffocate and extinguish the whole ardor of his soul and the vehemence of his human passions, and so would have to reduce himself to the condition of a mountain of ice, indifferent to all things, even the most beautiful and great. I pointed out to him that the flames of human passions, which always leave a void and a sense of dissolution, become changed into celestial flames through grace, and that the supernatural light of Heaven, once let into the soul, grows so wonderfully that the human passions become a volcano of Divine Love, a real fire that nobody can extinguish as long as goodwill remains in the soul. Have we not had the brightest examples in this direction? An Augustine, a Magdalen. Did they become mountains of ice after their conversion? Quite the contrary. We should never have had these prodigies of conversion and marvelous holiness, if they had not changed the flames of human passion into volcanoes of immense love of God." Oh, let us become volcanoes of Divine Love, bit by bit, more and more, until the Love spills over, lighting and warming everyone around us! Today's saint on the liturgical calendar offers us another example of a "Divine Volcano" -- St. Ignatius of Loyola. After his conversion, he wanted to set the world on fire with the love of Christ.
St. Ignatius was not living a life of sin like Mary Magdalene, but he was chasing worldly success as a soldier. St. Ignatius, as many of you know, was a brave and illustrious warrior until he was severely wounded in a battle. He returned to his family home in Loyola, Spain, to recover. We were blessed to visit it in 2017. A striking gold statue stands in his bedroom in the family home at Loyola, and we were able to attend Mass there. His room is now called the "chapel of his conversion" because, through spiritual reading here, he converted to a holier life. Ignatius was Choleric, and when his severe pain began to abate, he wanted to be productive. Being "stuck in bed" was more than he could handle. So he asked to read. But there were not that many books to be had, as the printing press was a newer invention at this time. In his autobiography, dictated in third person, and finished in December, 1555, the saint wrote: "As Ignatius had a love for fiction, when he found himself out of danger he asked for some romances to pass away the time. In that house there was no book of the kind. They gave him, instead, 'The Life of Christ', by Rudolph, the Carthusian, and another book called the 'Flowers of the Saints', both in Spanish. By frequent reading of these books he began to get some love for spiritual things. This reading led his mind to meditate on holy things, yet sometimes it wandered to thoughts which he had been accustomed to dwell upon before...but...in the meantime the Divine Mercy was at work substituting for these thoughts others suggested by his recent readings. While perusing the life of Our Lord and the saints, he began to reflect, saying to himself: 'What if I should do what St. Francis did?' 'What if I should act like St. Dominic?'"
As a choleric, he was a doer. This stained-glass window now in the home of St. Ignatius of Loyola depicts his fall in battle. He was considered a hero and was treated well by both his adversaries and his own men. When his heart changed after reading the life of Our Lord and the Saints, he still wanted to fight and be a warrior - but for a higher power! He wanted to go forth and fight under the banner of Christ the King. This second stained-glass window in Loyola shows the death of St. Ignatius...showing the difference after his change of life. The standard under which he fights is shown in both windows. In the first, he is treated as a hero by men, and in the second, he is honored by angels!
As soon as his leg healed, St. Ignatius of Loyola made a pilgrimage to the Monastery of Montserrat, where he made an all-night vigil over his sword and armor before the "Black Madonna". William Thomas Walsh, in his The Apparitions and Shrines of Heaven's Bright Queen volume 1, 1904 wrote, "in the spirit of the most exalted chivalry [he] resigned his sword forever -- resolved to devote himself thenceforth to holier pursuits." So what are some ways we can learn from these two saints how to become "volcanoes of love"?
For more Catholic travel photos, follow me on Instagram - Rosemary McGuire Berry - Catholic Author (@rosemary.writer) • Instagram photos and videos. Please pray for my current work-in-progress, a book of Catholic travel essays, which includes a chapter on St. Ignatius of Loyola, today's saint! St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us! |
Rosemary McGuire Berry - Paths to HIS Heart
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