United Striving for Sanctity

A BEAUTIFUL work which husband and wife can pursue together is the mutual effort to correct their faults. Maurice Retour, an industrialist and one of the youngest captains of World War I of which he was a victim, suggested this to the woman he loved even during their engagement. He wrote to her, “I must confess something to you . . . I became aware of your imperfections and I thought how pained I should have been if I had not been able to see clearly into your soul . . . You see how frank I want to be with you. We are just engaged and yet instead of paying you compliments, I do not fear to speak to you of your imperfections which my love for you cannot hide . . . Tell me you will pardon me.”

Another time he wrote, “In general, engaged persons strive to shine in each other’s eyes. We, on the contrary, began by showing each other all our faults…You have acknowledged all your faults to me; I confessed to you all my weakness . . . Thank you for your great confidence in me. But never forget that if I permit myself to give you advice which seems good to me, I can always be mistaken and you ought to discuss it with me. Otherwise I shall never dare to give you my opinions.”

In a later letter he said to her, “I have already abused the liberty you gave me. I have told you frankly all I thought about you, nor was I afraid to recognize before you what you call your great faults. It was, I must confess, most difficult for me to tell you because I love you so much that I dread causing you the least pain.” He added, “The interior life is what we need to correct our failings and we shall work from now on, if you wish, to grow in it.”

This mutual effort of husband and wife to correct themselves of their faults may be much, but it is not enough. Something more beautiful remains—to strive positively for sanctity through mutual instruction, loving encouragement and a united and confiding zeal for each other’s perfection.

“Why should we not live a saintly life?” asked Maurice Retour of his bride-to-be. And they decided upon some very definite principles for themselves.

“Let us put no faith in fortune, in pleasures, even in our self-love which always increases and makes us run the risk of becoming blind…. The one who receives the most grace will make the other profit by it. What do we care what the world says! It will say what it pleases, but it never will be able to say that we are not true Catholics . . . Our life will be holy and simple.”

“As far as jewels are concerned,” commented Maurice, “I understand you perfectly. If you had loved them, I should never have opposed your tastes, but I tell you frankly, I should have suffered. We shall not fail by excesses on this score. We can do so much good with money that it would be wrong, in spite of my desire to spoil you, to spend it only on you. We shall save all we can to enable us to give more to charity. We shall always go straight to our goal and make no concessions to worldliness.”

There is however, nothing admirable in a gloomy life.

“Our interior life must be so intense that it remains alive in all our exterior actions, our pleasures, our work, our joys, and our sorrows. I do not mean an interior life that makes us withdraw into ourselves and become bores for other people. On the contrary, we ought to spread our gaiety generously about us and spend all the activity of our youth to attract those who meet us. But, to be saints, we must be able to conserve in the midst of the most captivating pleasures and the most intense activity an interior calm which enables us to remain self-possessed always. . .”

A saint who is sad is sadly in need of sanctity! A truly inspiring program!