William T. Kane

“ One day Cardinal Commendoni, the Legate to Vienna, and a great friend of Stanislaus, came to Rome and hurried over to the Roman College to call upon Stanislaus. Stanislaus, as soon as he heard of his arrival, ran off to meet him just as he was, sleeves rolled up, apron on, straight from the scullery - just as any boy would do.
He was in everything perfectly at ease; content in his little round of little tasks; going ahead toward heaven without any show or heroics. He was doing just exactly the little things that God wants us to do, and he was entirely happy in so doing. ”

“ But he did it for God, and the world cannot understand him at all: the world is silent.
An hour or so of that steady, tireless stride carried him well away from Vienna. He slipped off his velvet and silk, put on his coarse tunic - a shirt-like garment that came below his knees - girded himself with a bit of rope, tied his stout shoes on his feet, and took the road again. There were folk aplenty journeying from the countryside to Vienna in the early morning. Stanislaus picked out one of the poorest-looking peasants and handed him the gala dress he had just taken off. ”

“ There is only one way to make people really love you, and that is to love them. That is what Stanislaus did; he loved the people he lived with. He was naturally good hearted, and big hearted. He had kept away from petty meannesses. He had fought down his natural selfishness. He had learned not to be always seeking his own little advantage, not to put himself forward for praise, not to insist on his " rights," not to boast and carry a high hand with his comrades, not to talk a lot about himself. ”

“ Still it may not be quite clear to the inquiring mind why the desperate difficulties of sainthood can be truthfully viewed in the light of a breathless adventure. Learn, then, the great secret. The love of God in the heart is the magical light which touches the dreariness and hardship of self-thwarting with a splendor of sublime Romance. You cannot have holiness without love. Holiness can be either greater nor less than the love of God. Let this love faint or grow cold, there is at once a loss of holiness, even though it retain all its external gear. ”

“ He gave them a couple of servants, mounted them all on good horses, and sent them off six hundred miles or more on horseback to Vienna.
You may be sure Stanislaus enjoyed the long ride. It would be strange if he, a nobleman of the finest cavalry nation in the world, were not a good horseman. He loved the smell of the open fields, he loved the boisterous song of the mountain torrent. The hills and the plains were his home, for the hills and the plains were nearer to God than the houses of men.
In those days all travel was on foot or on horseback. The wealthy and noble rode, the poor footed it. ”

“ If all moral life is a monotonous warfare, the life of a Saint is warfare in the very first ranks where the trenches are filled with water and the shells fall thickest and the general discomfort and pettiness are at their maximum. It is misleading and not in strict accord with known realities, to paint the portrait of a Saint in rose color and sunlight, diffusing an iridescent atmosphere of cheerful gayety and buoyancy. ”

“ The things the saints seem to do with ease are terrifically hard things, huge battles, regular slugging fights. The ease, if there be any, is not in the things they did, but in the men who did them.
You have seen skilled pianists sit down at their instruments and run off into brisk flowing music what looks like a hopeless jumble of notes. You may have seen an artist sketch in, whilst chatting idly, a swift, striking portrait. Well, all really good men are artists too; artists in fighting. And Stanislaus was one of the cleverest and strongest artists of the lot. ”

“ In those early days of Protestantism, Catholics, even Catholic boys, felt that they were in a fighting situation. The attacks upon the old faith woke new courage and devotion in those who remained faithful to the Church of the ages. And so, filled with that spirit of loyalty, that new earnestness which the times called forth, and living under the example of the simple manly piety of their Jesuit teachers, it is no wonder that the boys in the College of Vienna were an unusually good set of boys. ”

“ And he was gone before the peasant, gaping in wonder at the rich garments and dagger in his hands, could much more than catch a glimpse of that bright face and those laughing eyes.
He tramped all day, and made his thirty miles. When he was hungry, he asked some one he met for food. It is not likely that any one would refuse the smiling, handsome boy, from whose face innocence simply shone. But if any one had refused him, it would not have annoyed Stanislaus. ”

“ Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Saint Patrick, Saint Theresa, Saint Philip Neri, Saint Francis Xavier: such names as these come first to our minds when we think of "a saint." Yet the fact is that the greater number of saints are men and women who never did anything that the world would consider great or striking. Saint Joseph was of that sort. Even the Blessed Virgin lived and died in obscurity, made no stir in the world.
Sanctity is measured not so much by what one does as by how one does all things. Externally a saint may not differ at all from other people. It is his soul that is different. ”

“ Whenever he came to a church in the morning, he heard Mass and received Holy Communion, for he started out each morning fasting. And on the fourteenth day he reached Augsburg.
What happened there, we shall see in another chapter, and how within three weeks this smiling boy turned his face southward and tramped another eight hundred miles on foot to Rome. But just that will show you something of the spirit of Stanislaus, the spirit of a hero. All that a knight might do out of love for his lady, he did out of love for God. He really loved God with a sort of fierce intensity. ”

“ It will explain why fanatics and similar oddities are not Saints, though secular history sometimes honors them with the title.
Merely concede that the Saint possesses love for God in an extraordinary measure and degree, and it is the most comprehensible thing in the world that he will not only accept all tests of his love readily, but will go forth in search of them with eager alacrity. First and last and always the only keen satisfaction of great love, whether human or divine, is to welcome opportunities of proving itself in some heroic form of courage and endurance. ”

“ To talk about pious things, and do it acceptably, is a mighty hard matter. You have to know how. And the first part of knowing how is to be at home with pious things, to have thought about them, often and long, to have woven them into your life as Stanislaus had done.
The trouble with us is that we live so far removed from thoughts of God, of His Mother, that they never cease to be strange to us. We go blunderingly about mention of them, or we lack the courage to speak at all. ”

“ For youth is generous, and age is crabbed. And because Saints never become crabbed we are right in concluding that they always remain youthful. And, to draw out our conclusion, the lives of Saints, contrary to the popular belief, are much more interesting to the child than they are to the man. It is a pity that Catholic parents do not recognize this outstanding truth. No Saint's life is dull to the average intelligent child. ”

“ He would take no definite step about admitting Stanislaus into the Society until he did know more.
"Yon want to be a Jesuit?" he said, with thoughtful brows. "When?"
It was on Stanislaus' tongue to say, "Now, at once." But he hesitated a moment, and said instead, "As soon as you think fit."
You are a stranger to us, you know," Canisius went on, smiling a little, but pleasantly. "And before we admit men amongst us, we need to know that they have something more than a mere desire to join us.. That takes time to find out. Are you willing to stop in the college here for a while?" ”

“ Many a time, when Paul taunted him with acting in a way to bring discredit upon his name, he answered:
"No man shames his name by trying to please God. As for what men may think or say, that does not matter much. Do you think we shall bother much about that in eternity?"
There were two cousins of theirs who often stayed with the Kostkas; one of them was also called Stanislaus, the other, who afterwards rose to high rank in his native country, was named Rozrarewski. These sided with Paul and did their best to help him in making Stanislaus' life miserable. ”

“ Great highways cut Europe from end to end; though there were tracts in Stanislaus' country where the roadway was only the broad steppe, where the grasses waved and tossed like the sea, where men were few and their dwellings scattered far apart. ”