How can you grow in your spiritual life? How can you integrate that growth with your everyday experiences, choices, and relationships? Venerable Catherine McAuley not only taught this, but she exemplified how to do so by taking one step at a time towards growing in virtue. Her “little virtues” of humility, patience, forbearance, simplicity, courtesy, kindness, gentleness/meekness and trustful confidence in God grew over her lifetime. Though she suffered the loss of many loved ones, had severe challenges to her faith, and many obstacles to overcome in realizing her heart’s desire of helping the poor, sick and ignorant, she continued to pray, to seek counsel, to read and to make informed choices to the best of her ability. In other words, she freely cooperated with God’s grace and used her God-given gifts and resources for others.
Mother Catherine’s contemporary, Saint John Henry Newman (1801-1890) wrote about her:
We find her possessed of such noble self-command, so crucified to the flesh, so meek, so gentle, so tenderhearted…so merciful, so sweet, so prayerful, so diligent, so forgetful of injuries together with that facility of performing acts of devotedness above and beyond the ordinary acts of good people.
This series on “the Little Virtues” of From the Heart of Mercy focuses on how the spiritual strength nurtured by exercising the little virtues made a significant difference in the effectiveness of healthcare in Mother Catherine’s time. Indeed, the strength of the little virtues continues to be an essential element in our practice of medicine today.
Posted March 1, 2021
