Ruined & Undone

G.K. Chesterton once said that the saint is the one who knows he’s a sinner. Another way to state the same thing: The holy person has no illusions about herself. It is an extraordinary and surprising phenomenon that the saints seem to be those who are most conscious of their sinfulness. Even a cursory reading of Saints Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, Augustine, or Thérèse of Lisieux reveals that these undoubtedly holy people were painfully aware of how much they fell short of sanctity.

At times we are tempted to think that this is a form of attention-getting false humility, but then we realize that it is proximity to the light that reveals the smudges and imperfections that otherwise go undetected. A windshield that appears perfectly clean and transparent in the early morning can become opaque when the sun shines directly on it. Standing close to the luminosity of God, the holy person is more intensely exposed, his beauty and his ugliness more thoroughly unveiled.