Finding God in Everything
Jesuit Saint John Berchmans’ rector wrote the following about the young saint after his death:
“What we universally admired in him was that in all the virtues he showed himself perfect and that, with the aid of divine grace to which he responded to his utmost, he performed all his actions with all the perfection that can be imagined” (in Au & Cannon, Urgings of the Heart, 1995, p. 67; emphasis added).
The above description of John Berchmans is a reflection of the understanding of holiness in vogue for many centuries. Holiness was all about being perfect! In this understanding, holiness would appear an impossible ideal for us weak, flawed human beings. Thankfully, notions of holiness have changed.
Several developments in science and philosophy in the last hundred years undermined what was known as the mechanistic-dualistic paradigm (see May issue of Magnet) and paved the way for the emergence of a new one – the Holistic paradigm.
Fr Jose Parappully SDB
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