Do Saints have imperfections? I mean St. John de Sales fought his anger and was looked at has having great discipline. Just because a person is a Saint, does that mean that all their behavior is good? Isn't their a Saint out their who was womanizer until his deathbed, but died for Our Lord and became a Saint?
Jesus told Peter to put away his sword when they were arresting Him. He took a minute and healed the ear of the Roman Peter attacked. Isn't this what we are suppose to mimic?
These are good questions to ask, I hope I can provide answers that make sense to you. I believe you're referring to St. Francis de Sales who was a choleric, and became so meek that indeed he was a shining example to all as you say, and conquered himself to the point that people believed him to be phlegmatic by nature. As St. Alphonsus taught his faithful to read the lives of the saints, we too read them to know how to put virtue into practice, and it is generally accepted that if a saint was holy all their life, we may presume the important actions they accomplished were inspired by the Holy Ghost.
Punching others in the face for their heresy can be compared to a parent spanking a child. These things are done to mortify the flesh of the offender; to effectively uproot the evil in the other person, the manifest obstinacy, because they cannot be reasoned with. In this way, it is an act of charity. The virtue in patience with others lies in tolerating an evil in order to promote a greater good. Hence, if the greater good is hindered by this tolerance, patience is no longer a virtue, but a vice.
St. King Louis IX, King of France, was an exceedingly kind, meek, gentle man, and was known for the public displays of chaste affection he lavished on his wife continually. He possessed great charity for the poor, assisting them in their temporal and spiritual needs, hosting dinners and serving them himself. He was known for his fatherly love as well, the Lord blessed him with many children. However, here were some of his laws against immorality, to show that meekness and anger can coexist in the same soul: those who even owned a copy of the тαℓмυd ("holy" book of the Jews, that contains blasphemies of Our Lord and Our Lady) were to be put to death. He fought in the Crusades as well. The punishment for verbal blasphemies was branding the person's forehead with a red hot iron. In days of such severe punishment, crime was much less prominent.
Original sin being strong in all of us, most people are not deterred from crime unless extreme measures are used, and the concept that most people sincerely desire the common good and always mean well is the root of communist ideology, because it denies the reality of original sin, which comes with many wounds to our human nature. Look at the wickedness in communist societies, such as Stalin's Russia and the Wiemar Republic in Germany. We also see what has happened with the advent of democracy and so-called liberty of conscience. Pagan traditions such as gross sensuality and child sacrifice have made a come-back in the form of pornography, LGBTQ+ movement, child-trafficking, abortion, and so on.
Christian civilization was built on the blood of the martyrs, and civilizing barbaric nations was not without many just wars and bƖσσdshɛd. The reason society is falling apart now is because generally, no one has the courage to fight for God, and enforce with courage and perseverance, the true laws of God. The men who do possess this courage, do not have the means to fight as they would wish to fight. I am sure among the early Christians who witnessed the seemingly endless bƖσσdshɛd of the saints possessed a righteous anger at what was occurring as well, and could not prevent it, but had to place their hopes only in eternity.
Regarding Our Lord and St. Peter: here is the relevant verse (Douay-Rheims):
“Jesus therefore said to Peter: Put up thy sword into the scabbard. The chalice which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” — John 18:11
As we can see, Our Lord was tolerant of the cruelty with which He was being treated in order to accomplish the infinite good of His Passion, which would redeem and save us, and rebuked St. Peter not for defending Him as an evil in itself, but for being a hindrance to Our Lord accomplishing His Passion. Our Lord healing the soldier's ear is an example for us to love our enemies, and was Christ manifesting His willingness to endure the sufferings inflicted on Him by men, for love of us, and to show how ready He is to heal us, even while we are His enemies. Recall Our Lord whipping the Jews out of the Temple; this was done because tolerating their wicked behaviour would not have accomplished a greater good. Above all, Christ Our Lord was rightly punishing them for the injustice done to His heavenly Father.
Topic: Violence (Read 17343 times)