FROM THE FRENCH CATHOLIC BLOG
OF 'YVES DAOUDAL'
A "middle class holiness"?
"There are the saints of every day Saints" hidden ", a sort of " middle class of holiness, "as the words of a French author, this is " middle class of holiness " which we can all take part. "(Homily of Pope Francis, Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Sunday, April 14)
Who?
Well no. No French writer has ventured to use such an expression. And it is happily so. Because it would be contrary to the Gospel, to the teaching of the Church Fathers, and the whole of Catholic tradition (including in particular the universal call to holiness of Vatican II ), to imagine a "middle class of holiness. " The first step towards canonization is the decree of heroic virtues. There are no middle class heroes. And the "holiest of all days," which will not be canonized, puts as much in practice the heroic virtues. There is no holiness without heroic virtues. So there is no "middle class of holiness."
Is as a "French author" had advanced adventurously the term "middle class of salvation." This is Malègue Joseph, author of a now-forgotten saga which was critically acclaimed ... and ... by Paul VI, who had considerable success in the inter-war period, Augustin or Master is here . At his death, Joseph Malègue left another unfinished saga: Black stones. The middle classes of salvation . Into three parts. The second is incomplete, and it is especially in the third, non-existent, it was clear what he meant by "middle class of salvation."
The little that we guess is that it was rather (and logically) a pejorative, so down to what the Pope calls the "middle classes of holiness." Joseph Malègue opposes the "middle classes of salvation" (bourgeoisie practitioners mired in its class and its interests) in the world of saints, even if he ultimately, in his notes, connects the two ...
These two worlds are outlined in this brief excerpt from the second part (found here ), which shows a priest who approves a marriage of convenience: "It was very good, a" good "human, a secular good of a good convenience, rank, family, social base and worldly. The softest priest and yet himself more mortified with all his Lenten fasting of seventy-five years, which they had not about all his austerities, who was to die the following year, at the end of all his task, sweet death exhausted, placed himself at the height of his parishioners with spontaneous simplicity, to see them as their interests and calculations near the level they were visible, with rational clarity and their neatness which they needed, in the columns of credit and what they owed. "
That's what the parishioners of the "middle classes of salvation." There really was nothing to show as an example ...
Corrigendum
According to "Sentire cum Ecclesia" (see below), the term "middle class holiness" was used by Joseph Malègue (plural, which is why Google did not give me reference).Duly noted. There has been a French writer to talk about "middle class of holiness" and a pope to repeat it. This does not affect my review.
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