3 August 2022
Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
The celebration of great saints, three in a row, provides an opportunity for us to reflect on the idea of sanctity. We may think of sanctity considering the miraculous and the extraordinary such as saints performing levitations and bilocations. The church understands sanctity as simply moving towards God and resisting the temptation to use creation and other people for our own person goals. In short, sanctity is a habit of life that constantly makes decisions in light of the love of God and love of neighbor. Even those immediate heroic acts such as the decision of Maxmillian Kolbe who gave his life for another at a concentration camp came from a life of constantly moving towards God and manifesting that love for others. One of the great works sponsored by the Society of Jesus has been an organization known as the Bollandists, a group of scholars who spend their lives in research finding the true stories about the saints. This scholarly organization began in the early 17th century and continues to this day in a relentless effort to tell an accurate story about the Church and her saints. The work of the Bollandists does not have all the flash and photographic interest of some of the other works of the Jesuits, but scholarly work has its place and in fact it is frequently the firm foundation on which much in the church considers its major projects. Those interested in this important work may find more information at the following link: https://www.bollandistes.org/the-bollandists/
In brief, the Bollandists tell the correct story about the Church and her Saints a work of truth telling in the world of fake news. This group of hard-working scholars deserves our respect and support.