Dear Laura,<\/p>\n
I sympathize with you\u2026 kind of.\u00a0 I mean, you were the one who accepted the job, and you knew what it involved.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine that it\u2019s as bad as you say.\u00a0 C\u2019mon.\u00a0 How bad can it be?\u00a0 You live in a gorgeous mansion on the legendary Maine coast, overlooking the robust waters of the Atlantic, in the shadow of a historic lighthouse, with a servant, a gardener, and a cook.\u00a0 Do you realize how many people would die for a summer job like that?\u00a0 OK, I\u2019ll admit that cleaning stables and exercising horses 8 hours a day could get somewhat, um, how shall I say?… Redundant?\u00a0 And being in that splendid isolation, no friends, no family, nobody at all to talk to except the servant, the gardener, and the cook \u2013 that could get a bit tiresome as well.\u00a0 Even so, I think you need to change your perspective.\u00a0 I also think you should take up your old hobby again.\u00a0 I am willing to bet this entire office cubicle that that old house has a fabulous library.\u00a0 Why not make yourself a nice summer reading schedule?\u00a0 Try to get through a classic or two each week, instead of just flipping through magazines and surfing the web.\u00a0 Good reading can do wonders for your soul, and for the souls of others, as today\u2019s saint attests to.<\/p>\n
Ignatius (I\u00f1igo in the original Spanish) was a Christian knight from a noble family in the north of Spain.\u00a0 He inherited all the swashbuckling worldliness of the flashiest Spanish gallants, and as a young man he threw himself into the battles with France that raged in the borderlands surrounding his home.\u00a0 There he was blasted with a cannonball and had to spend months recuperating (he ever after walked with a limp).\u00a0 Bored stiff, he asked for some chivalric romances (like Renaissance Danielle Steele stuff) to read.\u00a0 None were available in the castle (hats off to his parents), but there was a \u201cLife of Christ\u201d and a few volumes of lives of the saints.\u00a0 To pass the time, he began to read them.\u00a0 Soon he began to relish them.\u00a0 By the time he could move freely again he had been firmly convinced of the vanity of earthly glory and vowed to make a pilgrimage to Mary\u2019s shrine at Montserrat where he would start fresh.<\/p>\n
There he began to lead a truly Christian life, laying deep foundations of intense and heartfelt prayer and building up an impressive spiritual edifice of self-denial, charity, and dedication to the Kingdom of Christ.\u00a0 He went on to make another pilgrimage, this time to the Holy Land, and then to take up studies for the priesthood in Europe\u2019s greatest universities (although he was twice as old as most of the students).\u00a0 Through it all, he made \u201ceverything for the greater glory of God\u201d into his personal motto, and gathered fellow students around him in order to be able to do more for the cause of Christ.\u00a0 Eventually, he formed the religious order now known as the Jesuits, which has had more of an impact on the world, perhaps, than any other institution besides the Church itself.\u00a0 Since its foundation in 1541, there has never been a day in which the earth has not been blessed with the presence of a Jesuit who was later canonized as a saint.<\/p>\n
And it all started when he was cooped up in a castle, all alone, and didn\u2019t have anything else to do but read.\u00a0 Don\u2019t they say history repeats itself?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t that be nice in your case?…\u00a0 Do keep in touch.<\/p>\n
Your devoted uncle,<\/p>\n
Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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