The power of Christ, the power of sanctity



Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England



It is a certain truth that if God in his providence exterminated every evil deed at once, killed every evil-doer, the final sum of goodness would be less. We have our Lord’s own words for it; there would be diminution. Goodness itself, sanctity itself, is fostered by the proximity of evil. As Saint Augustine puts it so well: it pleased God to make good come out of evil rather than to abolish all evil.

God could have abol­ished all evil in his omnipotence; he did not; he did the better thing; he made good come out of evil, he makes sanctity come out of it; makes martyrs through the cruelty of man, and gives his Church the most glorious traditions of fortitude and courage through the very presence of enemies in her midst and around her walls. When the great day of harvest comes sanctity will be found to be so great and so high by very reason of the wickedness that encom­passed it.

Our lives are constantly bound up with those of other people in some way or another. Perhaps those people fail in many things, but they are in some way a portion of our own lives; they partake of the graces we possess. “The faithless husband,” says Saint Paul, “will be sanctified through the believing wife.” The children of believers are sanctified through the very fact of their paternity. One person in a family may be the salvation of the whole family, though it may not be given to him to see the final issues and the ulti­mate results.

But there is the fact – an absolute cer­tainty, goodness inevitably produces goodness; it is unconquerable, it cannot be stifled, it has greater ramifications than evil can ever have … One saint outweighs a hundred, a thousand, perhaps a million sinners. The sanctity of one saint prevails over the sinfulness of a thousand sinners. Sin is negative; sanc­tity, positive. Sanctity is more powerful than sin; sanc­tity is, in fact, the only real power...

Begin with goodness, with sanctity, with the thought of God, and that you are the children of God. Begin with grace, not with sin and apostasy and infidelity; these things need not enter into your lives; you know that they exist, but they need not affect you. What should affect you is the power of Christ, the power of sanctity.

Dom Anscar Vonier, OSB

Dom Vonier (+1906) was the Abbot of Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England

From Magnificat, "Day by Day," February 6, 2011 and "Meditation of the Day," March 21, 2011