For Greater Things Part 1

For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka.

by William T. Kane, S.J.

PREFACE

Among Christian evidences the heroic virtue and holiness of Catholic youth must not be overlooked. Juvenile and adolescent victories of a conspicuous kind, over the flesh, the world, and the devil, can be found in no land and in no age, except a Christian land and age, and in no Church except the Catholic Church. It is of all excellences the very rarest and most difficult, this triumphant mastery over human weakness and human pride. It has defied the life-long strivings of men whom the world recognizes as beings of superior wisdom and power of will. The philosophers who have described it most beautifully and encouraged its pursuit in the most glowing and impressive terms remain themselves sad examples of human futility in the struggle to disengage the spirit from the claws of dragging and unclean influences. For the forces of evil are infinite in their variety, insidious beyond the ability of natural sharpness to detect and guard against, and unsleeping in the pressure of their siege upon the heart of man. Who will explain how it comes to pa.s.s that youth, whose callowness and inexperience are the mockery of the world, has laid prostrate in single combat this giant of evil and won fields where the reputations of the world's wisest and n.o.blest and most tried lie buried?

It is a matter of idle curiosity with us how an unbelieving generation, ingenious in devising natural explanations (which are most unnatural) of supernatural phenomena, would explain away the wonder of the young Saint's life which is the subject of the following pages. It presents to us a picture of Divine Condescension guiding and inspiring and aiding human effort, so convincingly clear and transparent in its smallest details and in its general effect as to seem outside the pale of all possible mutilation and misinterpretation by malice or skeptical a.n.a.lysis. Natural reaction against sinful excess, thwarted ambitions, disappointed hopes, meek conformity with environment, ecclesiastical manipulation of pliant material, tame acquiescence in family traditions and arrangements, these and all the other stock "explanations," with which a groveling world seeks to pull down the Saints to its own dreary level, cannot be invoked to dissipate the mystery and the glory surrounding Stanislaus. How did he come so early in life, and in a n.o.bleman's family, to set such store upon spiritual values? How did his tender and immature mind grasp with such swift sureness the one lesson of all philosophies, that life on its material side is an incident rather than the sum of human existence and can never satisfy the soul's desires ? How could this mere boy have developed, so young, an iron will which wrought that hardest of all laborious tasks, namely, the conformation of conduct with lofty ideals? There are supernatural answers to these and similar questions which might be raised concerning the brief career of St. Stanislaus. We know of no merely natural answers.

The lively and energetic style adopted in the present biography may create a trace of mild surprise in older readers. Sanct.i.ty, it is true, some one may say, is a very beautiful achievement in a world of poor and, at best, mediocre performance; but, after all, the business of sanct.i.ty is a serious business. It calls for grit and endurance, and, as a picture, is only saved from the sordid by spiritual motives which are unseen. If all moral life is a monotonous warfare, the life of a Saint is warfare in the very first ranks where the trenches are filled with water and the sh.e.l.ls fall thickest and the general discomfort and pettiness are at their maximum. It is misleading and not in strict accord with known realities, to paint the portrait of a Saint in rose color and sunlight, diffusing an iridescent atmosphere of cheerful gayety and buoyancy.

The criticism is not without some foundation; but youthful readers will not adopt it. For youth is generous, and age is crabbed. And because Saints never become crabbed we are right in concluding that they always remain youthful. And, to draw out our conclusion, the lives of Saints, contrary to the popular belief, are much more interesting to the child than they are to the man. It is a pity that Catholic parents do not recognize this outstanding truth. No Saint's life is dull to the average intelligent child. Grown-ups are dull: they never yield to sublime impulses: they measure, calculate, practice a hard-and-fast moderation, reduce the splendid possibilities of life to a drab level of safe actuality, and pursue ideals at a canny and cautious pace. Not so the Saints. They always retained the freshness and confidence and generous impulses of childhood. If G.o.d spoke to their inner ear and bade them leap boldly forth into His Infinite Arms, spurning irretrievably the solid footing of our spinning globe, without hesitation or question they took the leap. And every child can see the wisdom of it. To the child it is common sense: to his elders it is inspired heroism or unintelligible hardihood. We have always entertained a deep- seated suspicion that there is no child who does not think it easy to be a Saint, so native is sanct.i.ty to Catholic childhood. Cardinal Newman, we believe, exhorted us all to make our sacrifices for G.o.d while we are young before the calculating selfishness of old age gets hold of us.

Still it may not be quite clear to the inquiring mind why the desperate difficulties of sainthood can be truthfully viewed in the light of a breathless adventure. Learn, then, the great secret. The love of G.o.d in the heart is the magical light which touches the dreariness and hards.h.i.+p of self-thwarting with a splendor of sublime Romance. You cannot have holiness without love. Holiness can be either greater nor less than the love of G.o.d. Let this love faint or grow cold, there is at once a loss of holiness, even though it retain all its external gear. This is a cardinal truth; it is a key which will solve many a puzzle. It will explain why fanatics and similar oddities are not Saints, though secular history sometimes honors them with the t.i.tle.

Merely concede that the Saint possesses love for G.o.d in an extraordinary measure and degree, and it is the most comprehensible thing in the world that he will not only accept all tests of his love readily, but will go forth in search of them with eager alacrity. First and last and always the only keen satisfaction of great love, whether human or divine, is to welcome opportunities of proving itself in some heroic form of courage and endurance. Danger, suffering, battling against odds, discouragement, overwork, pain of mind and body, failure, want of recognition, rebuffs, contempt and persecution, are no longer the subject matter of a strong-jawed stoicism or a submissive patience but rather the quickening bread and wine of an intense and high-keyed life. This is why the Saints, be the provocation ever so great, never develop nerves, or experience those melancholy and humiliating reactions which are the natural ebb-tide of spiritual energies. This is why Saints can fast and keep their temper sweet, can wear hair-s.h.i.+rts without cultivating wry faces, can be pa.s.sed by in the distribution of honors without being soured, can pray all night without robbing the day of its due meed of cheerfulness, can rise superior to frailties and weaknesses without despising those who cannot, can be serious without being testy and morose, can live for years in a cell or a desert or a convent-close without peris.h.i.+ng of ennui or being devoured by restlessness, and can mingle with life, where all its currents meet, without losing their heads or swerving a hairbreadth from the straight line of a most uncommon and most impressive kind of common sense.

Unless we keep before our eyes this mainspring of a Saint's life, that life will be as enigmatical to us as it is to the world. Jesus balked at no test of the love which He bore towards us: nay, He devised tests pa.s.sing all human imagining. Let Him make trial of our love for Him! We are unhappy till He does! And with this daring spirit in his heart every Saint enters upon a career of Romance in its sweetest and highest form. And, we submit, to recur to the literary style of the following biography, Romance is light-hearted, light-stepping, cheerful, with the starlight on its face and in its eyes.

James J. Daly, S.J.

FOR GREATER THINGS

CHAPTER I

ON THE ROAD

Mid-August in Vienna, the year 1567: when Shakespeare was still a little boy; twenty years before Philip II fitted out the Spanish Armada; forty years before the first English colony settled in America. The sun had just well risen, the gates of Vienna had been opened but a few hours. Through the great western gate, which cast its long shadow on the road to Augsburg, came a strange-looking boy.

He lacked but a month or two of seventeen years, was some five feet two or three inches in height, had an oval face of remarkable beauty and liveliness, jet black hair, and eyes in which merriment dwelt as in its home. He was dressed as became a n.o.ble of the time, and in apparel of unusual splendor and costliness; plumed bonnet, slashed velvet doublet, tight silken hose, jeweled dagger at his girdle.

But it was odd to see so brilliant a figure on foot in the dusty highway; still more odd that be carried a rough bundle slung on a staff over his and that, peasant fas.h.i.+on, he munched at a loaf of bread as he trudged the road.

By no means stalwart-looking, still he swung along with an easy stride and a confident strength that many a stouter man might envy.

He was bound for Augsburg, 400 miles to the west, and he set himself thirty miles a day as his rate of travel.

He wore splendid clothes, because he was Stanislaus, the son of John Kostka, Lord of Kostkov, Senator, and Castellan of Zakroczym in the Duchy of Mazovia, Poland. He ate his rough breakfast, like a peasant, on the road, because he had just been to Ma.s.s and received Holy Communion at the Jesuit church in Vienna. He carried a bundle on his staff, because he laughed merrily at fine clothes and had in the bundle a coa.r.s.e tunic and a stout pair of brogans, which he meant to put on as soon as he got well out of the city. And his face and his eyes shone with joy, because he loved G.o.d most wonderfully and was as happy a boy as ever moved through this dull world.

Every age has its adventurers: men who for fame, or for place, or for money, cross wide seas, fight brave battles, endure great hards.h.i.+ps. The age in which Stanislaus lived was filled with them.

All the world reads with delight the story of such men. And every decent boy who reads feels himself, if only for the moment, their fellow in spirit, eager to do what they did and as bravely as they did.

But was there ever adventure finer than this, ever spirit more gayly daring? Stanislaus Kostka, son of a n.o.ble house, a boy in years, starting without a copper in his pocket to cross half of Europe afoot! And for what? Not to have men say what a brave chap he was; not to win a name, or rank, or money: but because G.o.d would be pleased by his doing it, because G.o.d called him to do something which he could not do in Vienna.

He felt he had a vocation to be a Jesuit. He knew his father would not consent. He took six months to think it over, to pray for light, to make sure it was no mere whim or fancy of his own, but the very voice of G.o.d. And when he felt sure, he left a letter for his brother Paul and his tutor, Bilinski, with whom he had been studying in Vienna; he gave his money to a couple of beggars; he said, "If G.o.d wants me to do this, He'll furnish the means"; he put on his best attire, tied up a rough suit in a cloth, took a stout staff in his hand, and with G.o.d's blessing upon him and His Eucharistic Presence in his heart, stepped out cheerfully on a journey that would stagger most men.

That is the stuff of which heroes are made. If Stanislaus had done this for the glory of the world, we should have his praises in our histories, we should have stories woven about him, the whole world would cry "Bravo!" But he did it for G.o.d, and the world cannot understand him at all: the world is silent.

An hour or so of that steady, tireless stride carried him well away from Vienna. He slipped off his velvet and silk, put on his coa.r.s.e tunic - a s.h.i.+rt-like garment that came below his knees - girded himself with a bit of rope, tied his stout shoes on his feet, and took the road again. There were folk aplenty journeying from the countryside to Vienna in the early morning. Stanislaus picked out one of the poorest-looking peasants and handed him the gala dress he had just taken off.

"I can't carry these with me, friend," he said. "Won't you please take them? I have no use for them, and perhaps you can sell them in the city."

And he was gone before the peasant, gaping in wonder at the rich garments and dagger in his hands, could much more than catch a glimpse of that bright face and those laughing eyes.

He tramped all day, and made his thirty miles. When he was hungry, he asked some one he met for food. It is not likely that any one would refuse the smiling, handsome boy, from whose face innocence simply shone. But if any one had refused him, it would not have annoyed Stanislaus. His good humor came from heaven, as well as from his own cheery soul - and you cannot rebuff that kind of good humor.

Night came down at last, and he was tired out. He came to an inn and asked for shelter.

"I have no money," he told the landlord, smiling, "and I have no claim upon you. Will you take me in?"

The landlord looked at him shrewdly a little, then said with respect:

"But what is your grace doing in such a garb?"

Stanislaus thought for a moment that he was recognized; but he put on a bold front, and laughed as he said:

"I am not 'your grace. I am what you see me, and I have a long journey to make."

In those days it was not unusual for even n.o.bles to go, roughly clad, upon pilgrimages of devotion. That Stanislaus was a n.o.ble, the landlord was quite certain. That he might be engaged on some such pious business, was possible. But who ever heard of a mere boy going upon pilgrimage?

The whole affair puzzled the landlord more than a little. However, the face of the boy rea.s.sured him. At least there could be no evil behind that frank, brave countenance. So he shook his head, saying:

"I do not understand. But come in. You are welcome."

He gave Stanislaus his supper and a bed to sleep in.

"You shall not be the poorer for this," said Stanislaus, as he thanked him. "You know G.o.d makes it up to us for even a cup of cold water given in His name."

And as the boy spoke, the landlord saw his face glow when he spoke of G.o.d and he was very glad at heart that he had given shelter and food, to this strange boy.

Stanislaus slept soundly. But he was up with the sun, washed and dressed quickly, and went to thank his host again before setting out.

"But you will have something to eat before you go?" cried the man, as Stanislaus stood before him, staff in hand, ready for the road.

"It is good of you to offer it," the boy answered. "But perhaps I shall find a church before long, and I must go fasting to Holy Communion."

Then the landlord marvelled again, for at that period even good people did not go very often to Holy Communion, especially when they were traveling hard, as Stanislaus evidently was. And his admiration and liking grew for this boy with the merry face and the heart so near heaven.

"At least," he said, "you must take something with you for the way."

And that Stanislaus did not refuse, but accepted gratefully, and so parted from the kind landlord, leaving him gazing in the doorway with wonder in his eyes.

His legs were a bit stiff and sore this second day. But the first few miles wore that off, and he swung on his way as bravely and gayly as before.

CHAPTER II