The Layfolk's Patron Saint

Extract

The Catholic layman should glory in the name of Catholic. It is no accident that, of the four marks of the true Church, Catholicity is the character that has prevailed. We are called Catholics, because the note of Catholicity in a sense contains and implies the others. Catholicity means unity diffused, spread abroad—unity everywhere. Unity absolutely demands a Hierarchy, oneness with the Apostolic tradition. Holiness means unity of belief and practice; the integral, personal unity of one who has perfectly harmonized faith and morals, whose life is the expression of his convictions of the one and only truth. Catholicity, therefore, means unity, vital and organized, unity magnificent, unity transcendent. Catholicity is the stupendous, resplendent unity of past and present, of all ages stretching out into the eternal years. The Catholic is one with Christ and one with all with whom Christ is one. The Catholic is the totalitarian Christian.

This totalitarian mark is conspicuous in the lives of the Church’s martyrs whose eminent charity led them to the last limit of self-sacrifice: their heroic constancy makes them one with the King of martyrs with Whom they are identified even to the shedding of their blood.