“When we look into God’s Face we do not feel His Hand.”

Health is a form of capital, and like any other capital may be either well or ill invested. Moreover, we can squander it foolishly or convert it into the supreme oblation, and to most of us life itself is a less difficult sacrifice. The tragedy of war is not so much the toll of the dead as the lists of the disabled.

Few of us are given the chance of dying for others, but to all of us is offered the privilege of spending ourselves for humanity, either individually or collectively. Countless parents, fathers as well as mothers, purchase with their own lives and health, life, vigor and opportunity for their children. The instinct of sacrifice is to a greater or less degree universal to parenthood, and although I do not wish to belittle their offering, I think it even more admirable when placed on a less obvious altar. Numberless people are daily overspending their physical resources in the service of mankind, by the furtherance of knowledge, the improvement of material conditions, by widening the door of opportunity or carrying the message of the spirit into teeming slum and arid desert. Others give themselves with equal prodigality in the more limited and less glorious field of their personal contacts; not merely to their homes, their dependents and friends but to all who come even casually within the radius of their fellowship.

It seems to me difficult to live at the height of our possibilities more especially if our activities are purely selfless, without being at times tempted to overdraw our health account. The soldier is only one of a great host whose bodies have been sacrificed in the performance of an imperative duty. Health is often purchased at the price of ignominious refusal.

It is therefore not surprising that a large proportion of the saints were men and women with ruined bodies,—bodies that had been rapturously spent in the service of God and man. I will mention only a few of the most renowned.

St. Jerome, one of the greatest of the early Christian Fathers, lived an unregenerate life until a severe illness induced a complete change in him and he resolved to renounce everything that kept him back from God. His greatest temptation was the study of the literature of Greece and pagan Rome, and he determined from thenceforth to devote all his vast scholarship to the Holy Scriptures and to Christianity. To him we owe the first translation of the Bible into Latin, commonly known as the “Vulgate.”

Very few men have ever wielded greater power over the minds of men than St. Augustine. He is to-day a living force, yet he struggled all his life against consumption. He lived, however, to be seventy-six.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the most famous monk and preacher of the Middle Ages, was a martyr to so many physical infirmities that at first sight he appeared “like one near unto death.” All this suffering, however, never quelled his ardent spirit or his overmastering zeal for purging the world of sin. It was St. Bernard who said, “Nothing can work me damage but myself; the harm I sustain I carry about with me, and I am never a real sufferer but by my own fault.”

St. Francis of Assisi was a gay, dissipated youth when a severe illness put a stop to his pleasures, and gave him time to reflect, so that he became dissatisfied with his mode of life. On his recovery he set out on a military expedition, but at the end of the first day’s march he fell ill and had to return to Assisi. This disappointment brought on another spiritual crisis and shortly afterwards he went on a pilgrimage to Rome. Before everything he was an ascetic and a mystic,—an ascetic who though gentle to others wore out his body in self-denial, so much so that when he came to die, he begged pardon of “brother Ass, the body,” for having unduly ill-treated it.

St. Catherine of Siena was not only a very great saint, but one of the greatest women that ever lived. The daughter of a poor dyer who learned to read when she was twenty and to write when she was twenty-seven or eight, she dictated books and letters celebrated not only for their spiritual fragrance and literary value, but also for their great historical importance. No empress ever wielded greater power than this extraordinary woman. Towards the end of her life her court consisted of pilgrims who flocked daily by the thousands to visit her. The miracle of her personality had its effect on all who approached her. A young libertine, belonging to one of the most aristocratic families of Siena, after one interview with this dyer’s daughter, abandoned his former life and became her humble follower until the day of her death. She converted a notorious robber, who for years terrorized the vicinity of Siena and had almost paralyzed its commerce. As a proof of the sincerity of his repentance he gave her his stronghold, together with all the spoils he had accumulated. The abandonment of Avignon as the seat of the Papal court undoubtedly changed not only the map, but also the history of Europe, and it was solely owing to St. Catherine’s passionate insistence that Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome, despite his own reluctance and the opposition of his cardinals. During her short life she was continually ill and during the period of her greatest activity she was dying.

St. Ignatius Loyola, one of the most remarkable and influential personages in the history of the Catholic Church, led the adventurous life of a courtier and a soldier until he received a wound at the siege of Pamplona. According to an old chronicler this “was the occasion of his conversion to God.” A cannon-ball hit his legs, shattering one. Serious illness followed the most painful operation, and for weeks his life was despaired of. It was on the bed of torment which he eventually left, lame for life and constitutionally enfeebled, that grace came to him. The saint himself said, when he returned from the Valley of the Shadow: “I have seen God face to face and my soul has been saved.” From that time onward he devoted himself to a spiritual life, wandering far and accomplishing much. Chief among his achievements was the founding of the Order of Jesuits. I must mention here a very remarkable fact that has, however, nothing to do with my thesis. In his will he bequeathed to the order he founded this legacy: “that all men should speak ill of it.” It is also curious that he who had benefited by illness should have said: “A sound mind in a sound body is the most useful instrument with which to serve God.”

St. Theresa of Jesus, the great Spanish saint, whose personality and writings have never lost their influence, was always extremely delicate, and during the period of her greatest accomplishments not only ill but old.

With St. Theresa closes my list of those gallant souls who, apparently unfit for the battle of life, have nevertheless left their mark on history and civilization. And I wish to remind you again that I have mentioned no one whose height of achievement has not been coincident with ill-health, or reached after the suffering of some serious physical disability. Neither have I thought it proper to cite any of the numerous instances of handicapped genius among our living contemporaries.

I am certain that many other names might be presented to your consideration, if it were not for my own ignorance as well as the extreme difficulty of getting any reliable data on the subject.