Читать книгу Quartet in Heaven онлайн

2 страница из 3

In some ways my quartet is more like a pas de quatre, for there is among them a constant movement and change of partners. Two of them, St. Catherine of Genoa and St. Rose of Lima, belong to history, while St. Thérèse of Lisieux and Cornelia Connelly belong to modern times. A fresh combination is that of Cornelia Connelly and St. Rose of Lima, who both spring from the New World, from North and South America respectively, while St. Catherine and St. Thérèse were born and bred in Europe. St. Catherine combines with Cornelia Connelly in the married state, while St. Thérèse and St. Rose are both unmarried, though only the first is a nun. Finally all return to their original partners, for St. Catherine and St. Rose are saints in the grand manner, complete with visions, ecstasies, miracles and almost inhuman penances, while Cornelia Connelly unites with St. Thérèse in the more ordinary ways of prayer and work and suffering.

The word saint, of course, has different meanings on different levels. On one, which is the sense in which St. Paul uses it in his correspondence with the young churches, it belongs to all the baptised—"the saints who are in Corinth"—in Ephesus, in Philippi. On another level it is applied to those whose goodness is impressively above the average; but on the highest level and in the technical and formal sense, it depends on the rite of canonisation. Cornelia Connelly is the only member of my quartet who has not been canonised, and if I should use the noun and its attendant adjective in connection with her, I wish to make it clear that I use them in the second sense only and that I accept unreservedly the judgment of the Apostolic See, which alone has the authority to pronounce to whom belongs the character and title of Saint.