Lay Saints, Prayer, Sanctity....

To expound upon two points mentioned yesterday: that of prayer and that of lay saints, I was drawn to my favorite lay saint this morning: that being St. Thomas More. The irony is that Thomas More thought perfection or better put, sanctity was out of reach for him because he was a layman. Yet he gives the lawyer, politician, father, husband, and layman one of the greatest examples of achieving holiness in the lay state.

This morning in particular, I write of St. Thomas More because of the mention of prayer. In his book, The Sadness of Christ (Scepter Press), More makes several observations about prayer. I quote from The King's Good Servant But God's First (who in turn quotes More)[James Monti, Ignatius Press].

The prayer of Christ in the garden serves as the point of departure for one of the most delightfully human passages in the De Tristitia Christi. For More launches upon an extended discussion of a problem all Christians are all too familiar with-that of distractions in prayer:

I wish that sometime we would make a special effort, right after finishing our prayers, to run over in our minds the whole sequence of time we spent praying. What follies will we see there?...Indeed we will be amzaed that it was at all possible for our minds to dissipate themselves in such a short time among so many places at such great distance from each other, among so many different affairs, such various, such manifold, such idle pursuits.

Of course to even get to these distractions, we must first make the effort to pray. I don't think Thomas More is discussing distractions encountered saying a few Ave's or Pater Nosters. He is talking about meditation and contemplative prayer. Thus we would suspect that Thomas More (with John Paul II) was not content as a layman "with a shallow prayer that was unable to fill his whole life".

One of the best articles I read in last few years on the priest scandal in the Church and the solution was written by Fr. Roger Landry (read it here on Catholic Exchange). His proposal: personal holiness:

"This is a time in which all of us need to focus ever more on holiness. We're called to be saints and how much our society here needs to see this beautiful, radiant face of the Church. You're part of the solution, a crucial part of the solution. And as you come forward today to receive from this priest's anointed hands the sacred Body of your Lord, ask Him to fill you with a real desire for sanctity, a real desire to show off His true face....Now's the time for real men and women of the Church to stand up. Now's the time for saints. How do you respond? "

I think that this sanctity can not even be approached without this deep prayer life which Thomas More and John Paul II recommend for all Christians-even the laity.