Human and Divine Love

Extract

Holiness on the heroic scale is sufficiently rare in itself, or so we believe; in conjunction with a profound and passionate love for a human being we believe it rarer still, almost a contradiction in terms. In our own times one whom, from the standpoint of our colder, more tepid lives, we may well consider a saint, has shown us the ways of sanctity, of active zeal so constant as to constitute heroism, and of human love, all united in a short life. This human and divine lover was Mario Chiri, one of the pioneers of Catholic Action which in Italy has produced an astounding crop of young men and young women of outstanding holiness; Mario Chiri is, humanly speaking, one of the most attractive of them.

Among the ways of Providence which may seem to our presumption least comprehensible is the early dying of men and women whose influence for good we feel has been abruptly extinguished. The simple answer is that death'does not end influence; on the contrary it often extends it; the radiation, more or less restricted, may by death become world-wide.