The action of holiness in history (3)

By Dom Prosper Guéranger   |   23 October 2024

Extract from The Christian sense of history, following “The action of holiness in history (2)”

Will the historian be able to pass over in silence that glorious phalanx of saintly emperors and kings, who, for three centuries and longer, appeared on the thrones and came to put the supernatural seal on the politics of the ages of faith? What a subject for study is the centuries-long influence on society of these crowned saints! A Saint Henry, a Saint Stephen of Hungary, a Saint Edward the Confessor, a Saint Ferdinand, and our own Saint Louis! And those saintly empresses, queens, duchesses: visible angels, the list of whom goes on further still, and who appeared in the midst of the peoples with whom they mingled in every manner, with the mission of cultivating and developing, by their sublime example, that Christian sense against which the corruption of nature protests ceaselessly and which ceaselessly needs to be revived! Can one think that it is enough to explain the active role of so many heroes and heroines of the throne by mentioning in passing that they were virtuous and that they have been counted among the number of the saints? No, it is necessary to penetrate further and to understand that here the point of view that is called legend is none other than the point of view of the most rigorous history. The benevolence of saintly kings and queens is one of God’s principal manifestations in the supernatural leading of society.

When the historian finally finds himself facing the Christian reaction in the eleventh century; a reaction which snatched Europe from barbarism; let him take care not to be mistaken. Let him attribute the triumph of the spirit over brute force neither to the genius of the former nor to the integrity of the latter; this would be contrary to all truth. This triumph was accomplished because God gave saints to His Church. If Pope Gregory VII had not been a saint, he would never have dared turn his mind to the task. What would Saint Anselm and Saint Peter Damian have done if they had been only pious pontiffs and knowledgeable doctors? In this century, Cluny was the fulcrum of the lever that moved the Papacy, but let us not forget that it was built on four saints whose long lives covered one and a half centuries. How could one ever explain the action of Saint Bernard in the twelfth century without taking into account the radiant sanctity that shone forth from him? In the thirteenth century, who held up a society already teetering if not the seraphic Francis and [Dominic] the apostolic son of Guzman? Both reawakened so powerfully, by their works and superhuman virtues, the supernatural sense that was ready to fail. And in the University, what element, other than that of holiness, assured Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bonaventure the supremacy which placed them so high above all the other Scholastic doctors? 

In the fourteenth century, Christendom seemed to collapse, fatigued by the rifts of the Western Schism, but still more so by the invasion of naturalism and sensualism, which the influence of holiness, in the thirteenth century, had been able to neutralise but not destroy. God then appeared more sparing with His saints. Apart from the illustrious Saint Catherine of Siena, we do not see a single saint whose action had any wide impact in this era. The historian will be sure to mention this characteristic of the decadence which had only just begun; but he will need to study at leisure the sublime figure of Saint Catherine of Siena, in whom is summarised all the supernatural vitality of her time.

The fifteenth century, still more unfortunate than the one which preceded it, since it was the first to see anarchical doctrines formulated by the most celebrated doctors, and the standard soon raised against Christendom by the heresy of Wycliffe and Jan Hus; the fifteenth century, it must be said, was poor in saints. Its total did not come to half that of the thirteenth century. The extraordinary effect that Saint Vincent Ferrer produced on several kingdoms shows, however, that the sense of holiness lived on in the masses; but it must be added that this angel of God’s judgment had already ended his career in 1419.

Then came the sixteenth century, a time of terrible trials in its first half; an era of triumph in the second. The historian will be sure to demonstrate from the facts that saintliness showed itself in an analogous proportion. Saint Cajetan almost filled the first half by himself; but barely had the year 1550 sounded when a marvellous flowering announced itself on the branches of the secular tree of Christendom, and, while Protestantism had at last stopped its conquests, it pleased God to show that the Roman Church had lost nothing, since she kept the gift of sanctity. A Christian history of the sixteenth century would have to be done again if it did not appreciate the restoration of Christian morals prepared by Saint Cajetan and continued with such vigour and magnitude by Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the saints of his Society, the reform of discipline formulated in the wise decrees of the Council of Trent and implemented by popes like Saint Pius V and bishops like Saint Charles Borromeo, the apostolate of the Gentiles reborn in Saint Francis Xavier, that of Christian cities in Saint Philip Neri; the cloister purified through Saint Teresa, Saint John of the Cross and Saint Peter of Alcantara. One must go back to the fourth century if one wishes to see such a radiant constellation of saints as that which shone in the firmament of the Church when the pretended reform had finally determined its borders. But among all those glorious names, France furnished only one saint: the historian will have to account for such a peculiarity.

This series continues next week with “The action of holiness in history (4)”

The Christian sense of history is available to buy on the Voice of Family website.