Imitating the Saints

My God … you alone know how far I have been from imitating your saints, how much evil I have thereby caused … [and] how much good I have failed to promote … Through the holiness of Jesus Christ’s life, destroy the deformity of mine and give me instead his holy life. (OOCC, X, pp. 720 - 721; STA, 527)

St. Vincent Pallotti believed that the imitation of saints, capturing their true spirit and living according to their example, were important means for a person’s growth in his spiritual life. For St. Vincent, saints were our brothers and sisters in faith. They professed the very faith we profess and lived the very life of Jesus, which we live as Christians. They struggled in coping with the demands of life, as we do. Hence, understanding the spirit that guided them in their life would be of vital importance for a Christian. St. Vincent felt that by his failure to imitate the saints, he had caused much evil for himself and for others as he failed to promote the good. Otherwise he could have promoted good in imitation of the saints. He wished and prayed that the holiness of the life of Jesus would help him to destroy in himself the deformity of not imitating saints and learning from their example. He wanted instead the holy life of Jesus to inspire him to live his life in imitation of Jesus and the saints. This spirit helped St. Vincent to learn from others and grow in the holiness of life as a Christian and a priest.

Do I accept the life of the saints as an inspiration to my spiritual growth? Am I willing to understand their life and learn from them how to cope with the demands of life courageously? Do I believe that the imitation of the spirit that guided the saints can help me to avoid evil in my personal life and that of others?

You, brothers, have become imitators of the Churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you suffer the same things from your compatriots as they did from the Jews. (I Thes. 2: 14)