Dear Al,<\/p>\n
I am glad to hear that your internship is going well.\u00a0 I am surprised, however, that you have already decided that you want to go to law school and then work for this firm for the rest of your life.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you think such a conclusion is a bit too weighty to come after merely six weeks on internship, it being your very first internship?\u00a0 Don\u2019t be rash, my impetuous young nephew, be shrewd.\u00a0 Keep a lot of doors open until you find the one God wants you to go through, not just the one with honey on the handle and candy on the jamb.\u00a0 To make a truly prudent decision, you need to judge by criteria that include this world\u2019s values, but that focus on Christ\u2019s values.\u00a0 That\u2019s what today\u2019s saint did, and the Church has never been the same.<\/p>\n
His parents got him decent tutors when he was a boy, and at age 13 he began college.\u00a0 In three years he completed the seven-year program of studies in jurisprudence, took the examinations for doctorates in Civil and Canon Law, and passed them both with honors.\u00a0 At 16, the future saint was already a successful and well-respected lawyer hobnobbing with high society in the Kingdom of Naples.\u00a0 In eight years he never lost a case.\u00a0 It is safe to say that he was a pretty talented fellow. When he finally did lose a case, it was under such enormously odd circumstances (somehow he had failed to read the most relevant passage on the first page of a key document that he had studied over and over again) that he took it as a sign from God (he had been asking for a sign from God) and retired from the Bar.\u00a0 He began tending the sick in the Neapolitan hospitals for the incurably ill, and there he heard an inner voice saying, \u201cLeave the world, and give yourself to me.\u201d\u00a0 Soon afterwards, he braved the vehement opposition of his father and began studying for the priesthood.\u00a0 At the age of 30 he was ordained, and thus began a career of exceptional spiritual fruitfulness, coupled with immense suffering (isn\u2019t it funny how those two things so often go together?).<\/p>\n
The fruitfulness, during his lifetime, came especially in and through the results of his many parish missions, during which he preached repentance with gargantuan effect in country parishes throughout the Kingdom.\u00a0 When he got older and was named bishop of St Agata dei Goti, he traveled less, but channeled his pastoral charity into reforming his corrupt diocese and writing prolifically on theological and spiritual topics.<\/p>\n
The suffering came especially in the form of continuing opposition to his foundation of a religious order conceived to extend his missionary zeal throughout the world (this opposition often came in the form of deception, calumny, and underhanded political posturing).\u00a0 He also suffered from such an acute physical deterioration that he sometimes was unable to hold himself erect long enough to celebrate Mass.\u00a0 In the last two years before his death, he was assailed by violent temptations against every dogma of faith and every virtue, accompanied by hideous diabolical manifestations (he was 87-88 years old at the time).\u00a0 A few months of respite, filled with deep spiritual consolation, preceded his passing away, when he was just about to turn 91.\u00a0 Soon afterwards, his much-maligned Congregation (the Redemporists) flourished, and he was named a Doctor of the Church after being canonized in 1839 \u2013 only 52 years after his death.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mean that you have to forgo a career in law or politics or business or whatever in order to join a religious order.\u00a0 That\u2019s not what I\u2019m getting at (though it may be what God\u2019s getting at).\u00a0 Such activities are healthy in themselves and can be sanctifying (Alphonsus used the skills he learned in studying law to write one of the most brilliant moral treatises the Church has ever produced). Rather, St Alphonsus\u2019s example simply shows that what matters most is winning souls, not winning prizes and basking in perks.\u00a0 So keep enjoying your internship (what\u2019s left of it), and take full advantage of it, but don\u2019t get so attracted by the beach that you get drowned by the tide.<\/p>\n
Your devoted uncle,<\/p>\n
Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Al, I am glad to hear that your internship is going well.\u00a0 I am surprised, however, that you have already decided that you want to go to law school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n