calendar of the canonized, but who can doubt that she is a saint and a mother of saints?
At the time when the Revolution had devastated the Church of France, had desecrated her sacred edifices, had made martyrs or exiles of her priests and religious, had enthroned on the high altar of the Cathedral of Notre Dame a shameless woman as the symbol of a bestial worship; when millions believed that infidelity had finally triumphed, and that the religion of Christ was to be blotted from the earth, a country girl, Sophia Madeleine Barat, the daughter of an artisan in Burgundy, the land of St. Bernard and of Bossuet, finding her soul all aflame with divine love, was led, under the guidance of a holy priest, to establish the Society of the Sacred Heart. She had been educated by her brother, a priest also, who had given her a thorough religious training and a good knowledge of the classics. She was only twenty-one years old, of delicate bodily frame, but strong in mind, firm of purpose and capable of boundless devotion. She had the qualities of the true French woman—common sense, tact, knowledge of the management of men and affairs, quick wit, self-forgetfulness, industry, economy, cheerfulness and courage. Above all, she had a reverent, devout and ardent soul that felt that God is love, that Christ is divine love made human and that in comparison with this love all other things are light as air and trivial as dust.
Religious asceticism—heroic humility, voluntary poverty and perfect chastity—is for the sake of love, as military asceticism is for the sake of glory and monetary asceticism for the sake of pelf. As the warrior and the miser find self-denial easy, much more are they who greatly love able to abstain and renounce. "A wise man needs but little," Madam Barat was wont to say, "and a saint still less." And all that she seemed to feel the need of was to love the Lord, and in lowliness of spirit and entire disinterestedness to follow after Him in the service of the little ones of whom He said, "of such is the kingdom of heaven."
But why should I utter the praises of her who, with the instinct of good sense and great virtue, turned resolutely from whatever ministers to vanity? To be praised for love and love's work seems
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