hundred years to see that while moral principles remain constant their application in a given situation undergoes variations of emphasis, Read St. Francis de Sales on dancing, study a little of St. Benedict Joseph Labre’s attitude to everything (in his view) concerning chastity, consider what some doctors of the Church have said about the theatre and then reflect on our times, not on their specifically evil manifestations but on those things that we take for granted—parish dances, card parties, theatrical entertainments and the like. We have our difficulties and grievous temptations but it is probable, I think, that if another saint like the Curé d’Ars arose in our midst the things that he would castigate might well lie elsewhere, things, possibly, that have not occurred to us.
That the Curé d’Ars may have used a severity in dealing with his flock that now appears foreign to our present habits is really unimportant; he was of his times, he spoke to them in their own idiom, but we should not forget that as years went on his severity diminished and, though dancing remained his especial aversion, he did not defer absolution as he had previously done, and the burden of his sermons—copied from no one: he had not the time—welled up from a heart overflowing with love of God. That is just another way of saying that as a young priest his steps were firmly set on the path to heaven but he had not come to the heights of holiness; when as an old man he stood in his pulpit, toothless and mumbling so that few could hear him, the burden of his message was the love of God and the very sight of him standing there moved many to tears and contrition. His sermon was his life. But he had reached the goal of sanctity principally through his devotion to duty as a parish priest, and that duty had included preparing sermons as best be could for his erring parishioners in those far-off days; for he realized well his limitations. And that is only one of the lessons of that incredible life of his: devotion to duty that led him to heaven and, we may be sure, many of his flock with him,
