St. Patrick and the Souls You Hardly Save

With Saint Patrick’s Day having just passed, I was able to reflect on the evolution of my observance of the day. At Catholic elementary and middle schools, an article of green apparel was a must, and the day was usually accompanied some sort of (artificially) green food. At the University of Michigan, bars would open early (very early), and despite the Wolverines’ apathy or even loathing of things Irish (particularly the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame), a magnanimous gesture of fraternity would inevitably sweep the entire campus as the Saint of the Emerald Isle was cheered from dawn until dusk.

Oddly enough, the following morning that common brotherhood was forgotten (or perhaps “not remembered” would be more accurate) as headaches and basketball rivalries overcame any lingering remnants of the memory of solidarity with the Irish patron. One might suspect that if this is the way Patrick is celebrated, the saint himself might well prefer to be forgotten.

An Irish blessing

This year in Italy, celebrations were marked by a concern for the Nigerian community at the parish (incidentally, Saint Patrick is also the patron of Nigeria) and some Irish food. The celebration also marked the first Saint Patrick’s Day without one of my brother priests, who passed away in the summer.

He was born and raised in Ireland and after a conversion later in life, Fr. Eddie entered seminary in his late fifties. His Irish wit and compassion towards the sick made him well-loved and appreciated among his much younger peers. As the years of study worn on, although his wit and compassion remained, his health began to decline. Ordained a priest in 2016 at the age of 66, his four years of ministry would be marked by illness, and seldom did he celebrate Mass in public.

What’s the point?

The question that naturally arises is: what’s the point? Was all that work, all the study, all the sacrifice, really worth it? I have met those who tell me, without hesitation, that the answer is no. Why give so much, take so much time and effort for an elderly man to become a priest?

I can appreciate their concerns: financially, perhaps it makes little sense, and it is certainly time-consuming to explain, over and over again, the finer points of philosophy and theology. Yet, such arguments miss the most important reason in favor of all the efforts and sacrifices; indeed, they miss the only real reason for doing anything at all, and that is because it is God’s will.

When Eddie understood that God’s will was for him to become Father Eddie; when he saw that, in spite of his wanderings, God wanted him for His own, to have him serve as His Priest, the Divine will became the guiding rule and measure of his life and a gift for those who came into contact with him. If it took Fr. Eddie 66 years and traveling across the world to become what God had planned from all eternity for him to be, the sacrifices and efforts were all worthwhile.

I mention this because Fr. Eddie’s case shows us a general principle, one that should govern our lives. While we may not know what God intends in particular for each soul (for instance, whether God is calling a particular soul to religious life or marriage), we know that in general He desires all men and women to be saved and come to know the truth (1 Timothy 2:3-4). God’s universal will is that all may make it to heaven. This general desire should be ours as well, and it needs to be shown in our prayers and sacrifices, in our attitudes towards others, in short, in the way we live our daily lives.

What about the wandering sheep?

This thought is perhaps easy to keep in mind for those dear to us who haven’t wandered far from the path, the ninety-nine sheep in our lives who stay more or less close to Christ. But what about that one sheep who wanders? Perhaps we have one in the family, or a coworker or friend: what about that soul who seems so far off that there is no hope? Do our sacrifices and prayers really make a difference?

My favorite poem by G. K. Chesterton is The Ballad of the White Horse. In this I’m not alone, because, as scholars note, the work is one of the last great epic poems in English, and it was the only work that Chesterton thought was good enough to dedicate to his wife. The poem recounts a fictionalized account of King Alfred’s battle with the Danes in 878 AD, but the work has more to it than that because Alfred is Christian and the Danes are pagans.

In the beginning of the poem, as Alfred becomes aware of the size and strength of the Danish army and plans for the eventual battle, he calls out to the Blessed Virgin, asking only to know whether, when everything is said and done, he and his men will make it back home alive. Mary’s answer is enigmatic. After telling him that the wise and evil know many things, she ends with the following three stanzas:

But you and all the kind of Christ / Are ignorant and brave,/ And you have wars you hardly win / And souls you hardly save.

I tell you naught for your comfort, / Yea, naught for your desire, / Save that the sky grows darker yet / And the sea rises higher.

Night shall be thrice night over you, / And heaven an iron cope. / Do you have joy without a cause, / Yea, faith without a hope?”

Given that cryptic answer, Alfred goes to gather his troops, telling them he’s calling them to go die in battle, since he assumes that’s what Mary’s message means. What the king doesn’t understand is the last line: “Do you have joy without a cause?” which is a reference to Mary, the Cause of our Joy, who will intercede during the pivotal moment in the battle and bring them victory.

The Souls You Hardly Save

Consider just that one line: “You have wars you hardly win and souls you hardly save.” In our lives, we encounter a great number of souls who are in bad spiritual shape, souls who seem to be beyond help. Even Saint Teresa of Calcutta, that great saint of charity who loved everyone so dearly, even she spoke of souls who have “an entire miserable existence, an existence perhaps believed to be useless.” We could say that these are, at best, the souls that are hardly saved.

But, as the king failed to see, a war hardly won is still a war won, and a soul hardly saved, is still a soul saved. It might not be very pretty, but, in the end, as they say in sports, a win is a win.

An Example from the life of Saint John Vianney

In his biography of Saint John Vianney, the Abbe Trochu recounts the following story of the saint.

A certain Abbe Guillaumet met a lady on a train who was in deep mourning and when he said that he was going to Ars she asked, “Monsieur l’Abbe, will you allow me to accompany you to Ars? I may as well go there, as elsewhere. . . .  I am travelling to distract my thoughts.” When they reached the village, the priest led the lady to a place near the church and suddenly, [John Vianney] appeared. He stopped in front of the lady in black who, following the example of the crowd, had gone down on her knees. He bent over her and whispered into her ear: “He is saved!” The woman was startled and M. Vianney repeated: “He is saved!” A gesture of disbelief was the only reply of the stranger. Whereupon the saint, stressing each word, repeated, “I tell you he is saved. He is in Purgatory, and you must pray for him. Between the parapet of the bridge and the water he had time to make an act of contrition. Our Blessed Lady obtained that grace for him. Remember the shrine that you put up in your room during the month of May? Though your husband professed to have no religion, he sometimes joined in your prayers; this merited for him the grace of repentance and pardon at the last moment.”

The next day, the lady explained to Abbe Guillaumet that she had been in black despair because of the tragic death of her husband: “He was an unbeliever, and my one object in life was to bring him back to God. I did not get the time. He committed suicide by drowning himself. I could only think of him as lost. Oh! Were we never again to meet? Now you hear that the Cure d’Ars told me more than once: ‘He is saved!’ So I shall meet him again in heaven. Monsieur L’Abbe, I am cured!”

No one would hold up the husband of the story as a model of faith. Yet, in the end, he was saved through God’s mercy, but also through the prayers and efforts of his wife. A soul that is hardly saved, is saved nonetheless. Indeed, it in this context that Saint Mother Teresa speaks of such souls. “I am convinced,” she said, “that even one moment is enough to ransom an entire miserable existence, an existence perhaps believed to be useless.” The woman had prayed, sacrificed, and begged God for her husband’s soul.

Dramatic or not, this is the work to be done

Sometimes these sacrifices for the conversion of souls are seen in a dramatic way. For instance, after the death of Venerable Elisabeth Leseur, her atheist husband came across her will. In it, she explained how she made a deal with God, asking Him to send her all the sufferings and sacrifices necessary to purchase his soul. “On the day that I die,” she wrote, “I shall have paid the price. You will have been bought and paid for. Greater love than this no woman hath that she should lay down her life for her husband.”

Although he initially scoffed at the thought, the husband would later experience a profound conversion, become a religious, and eventually a priest. Yet, not all, and perhaps not even most sacrifices are so dramatic. Saint Therese of Lisieux remarked that “To ecstasy, I prefer the monotony of sacrifice.” The little sacrifices, the small offerings, hidden in the depths of daily life but offered to God nonetheless, make all the difference.

Honoring Saint Patrick

Why mention this now? Shortly before I left the States for Italy, Fr. Eddie remarked, knowing that his health was declining: “Nate, I want you to preach my funeral Mass.” As Providence would have it, between COVID and lockdowns, I wasn’t able to make it, but this, more or less, would have been the point of the homily. An Irish life lived for and in Jesus Christ, a life which brought so many other to Christ: there is no better way to honor Saint Patrick.

If, as the saying goes, we are all Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day, then this lesson is for all of us. With our sacrifices and prayers, and mostly importantly through our examples and vocations, we can help Christ reach even the “souls that are hardly saved.”