Appropriate to today's feast day, I have been continuing to read the book I mentioned a couple weeks ago here, by Fr. James Martin, called My Life with the Saints.   Fr. Martin describes a particular aspect of Jesuit spirituality called the Two Standards, in which the person on retreat is asked "to imagine being asked to serve under the banner, or 'standard' of one of two leaders - Christ the King or Satan.  If one does choose to serve Christ, it must necessarily be by imitating the life of Jesus, choosing 'poverty as opposed to riches....''  

 

I'm thinking about the idea of the Two Standards in relation to today's first reading (2 Corinthians 11:18, 21-30) in which Paul describes what it means to follow Christ.    In this letter, the Corinthians appear to be a community in some disarray, unsure of whose words to follow.  Some have preached Jesus, but are doing so in a boastful way; they're boasting about themselves, about their strength.  But Paul is clear that the ones who are truly preaching Jesus are the ones who will not boast about themselves, but will only rejoice in God.  And though Paul proclaims that he is boasting too - he names his boasting as folly and he boasts only in his weaknesses, because it is Christ that is important.  The ones who boast about themselves are following Satan (indeed, Paul even refers to Satan in verse 14).  

 

The gospel lesson today (Matthew 6:19-23) also makes a very stark distinction - the ones who store up treasures on earth do not have their heart with God.  The constant theme today is to choose the one whom you will serve, and there's a prayer echoing in the background - a prayer of hope that the one you will serve is Jesus.

 

 Fr. Martin also writes a chapter about today's saint, St. Aloysius Gonzaga.  I had not really heard much about him till now - but Martin suggests that many contemporary Catholics are not enamoured of Gonzaga because he fasted three days a week, prayed on the stone floor in his room at midnight, and constantly averted his eyes in the presence of women.  We don't like those practices because he goes overboard, to us, he seems to be too rigid in who he sees as a real Christian, he seems even to hate women.  But Martin seeks to put his actions in a different light: he was a teenager when he did these actions (most teenagers I know tend to be very emphatic about doing what they see as true), and one who was doing constant battle against his father.  His father wanted him to follow in the family line and become a Marquis; St. Aloysius wanted to join the Society of Jesus.  Father and son were locked in battle of wills , but eventually the father relented, writing to the Jesuit superior: "I merely say that I am giving into your Reverence's hands the most precious thing I possess in all the world."

 

Aloysius entered the Society of Jesus at 17 years of age; the single-mindedness with which he had made his personal devotions at home now became single-mindedness in serving God through the Society.  The Society superiors asked Aloysius to moderate some of his practices, which he did - and this shows that, in fact, he less rigid than our contemporary minds might think.  St. Aloysius continued his single-hearted devotion to Christ in his caring for plague victims.  He himself succumbed to the plague at the age of 23, and was beatified 14 years after his death.

 

St. Aloysius Gonzaga stands as a physical reminder of Paul's message and Jesus' gospel: to serve under Christ's standard and be single-minded in that purpose, even if our ways of serving Christ end up being diverse.  Today, let us pray for this single-mindedness too.

 

Jana M. Bennett