Dear Pam,<\/p>\n
True, growth in holiness does take time.\u00a0 But it seems like you\u2019re using that truth as an excuse to cling to your comfortable, self-indulgent ways.\u00a0 Frankly, the only thing stopping you from being a saint is, I hate to tell you, yourself.\u00a0 Why put it off?\u00a0 Why not follow the example of today\u2019s saint, who showed in his life the truth of Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s resounding affirmation on the day of his installation as the 265th<\/sup> Supreme Pontiff: \u201cDo not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away and gives everything.\u201d<\/p>\n St Pancras was an orphan born in Palestine, it seems.\u00a0 His uncle took him to Rome when he was only a boy.\u00a0 There both of them became Christians.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know the circumstances of their conversion, but we do know what happened to Pancras.<\/p>\n When Emperor Diocletian tried to rejuvenate his crumbling empire by purifying it of the Christians, he inaugurated the most vicious and universal persecution in history.\u00a0 We have no way of calculating the number of victims, which certainly reached well into the thousands, but we do know many of their identities.\u00a0 One of them was St Pancras.\u00a0 He was just a teenager, a 14-year-old boy when he was rounded up and beheaded along with two former Roman Legionaries, saints Nereus and Achilles.\u00a0 Years later, Pope Saint Symmachus built a church over his grave, and Pope St Vitalian sent some of his relics to England when St Augustine of Canterbury was initiating the evangelization of the British.<\/p>\n Why was this orphan-martyr so popular?\u00a0 One of the reasons was his age.\u00a0 Though his body and mind were immature at the time of his martyrdom, his heart and his soul overflowed with supernatural courage.\u00a0 He proves beyond a doubt that being a saint is not a task only for \u201cadults\u201d, as you so sophisticatedly put it in your note.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t have any of his relics to send you.\u00a0 But I can assure you that a prayer for his intercession in your current state of spiritual stagnation will help jumpstart your hunger for holiness.\u00a0 That, as the Gospel tells us, is the only sure way to find the satisfaction you\u2019re really looking for.<\/p>\n Your loving uncle,<\/p>\n Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Pam, True, growth in holiness does take time.\u00a0 But it seems like you\u2019re using that truth as an excuse to cling to your comfortable, self-indulgent ways.\u00a0 Frankly, the only 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