8 jan

Being a Catholic, I have grown up with saints, sometimes called Saints. My parents didn’t care for them too much. They were much too level headed to get excited about this Francis here or that Bernadette there. But somehow, between the lines, it became clear that some people were more special than others, and some were especially special, they were called saints, or Saints..

I haven’t been bothered with these figures for decades, except for the fact that I was always longing for some kind of leadership and guiding personalities. I’ve found them everywhere. My parents, my family, my friends, society as I knew it.

I was not alone. I saw my generation turn their heads against saints of the past and immediately start looking for saints of the present. The level minded ones went for Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Manela. I do not really care what the other ones went for; Che Guevarra, Jean Paul Sartre, Maharathna, Marx. I sympathized with the first and shrugged my shoulders for the second, but somehow I realized, saints are there for a reason. They are there to guide or to get comfort, or to confront. But most of all. They were there because they still mattered, even after centuries in the case of the ones that matter most.

To me this is no proof of value, although it should be, but it is intriguing.

Most people who deny saints have created their own saints in the main process. Nothing wrong with that although it wouldn’t stand Popper’s proof of scientific theory, if I understand it well.

I love them, Saints. And, travelling through mainland France, I’ve been discovering the ones that matter most to mainstream people. I really have no clue what St. Anthony of Padua was up to, but he is revered in every church, hundreds by now, that I have visited. He had something with children, that’s all I know,

‘If  I would  been a boy, you would have called me Anton, right’, Claire asked when we walked out of the church in Brantome which we just went to see, and where there was another lovely statue of Anthony of Padua.

You would have called me Anton, right, Claire asked, if I would have been a boy No, Probably Teun or something, I answered. Teun, the disgust on her lovely face was clear. Claire fitted her much better, I was certain.

But then back to saints. The two saints of my life are Claire and Julie. And if I would have to name three I would include my mother. And when you ask me; Do they behave saintly? I would answer: Generally, Yes.

And that’s what saints, or Saints are for. It is not only the life that you’re aiming for, it is also the life that you’re dealing with. None of these aims are perfect, but some of them are good enough.

Like my life., Here as a Marquis in the Perigord, eating a humble hare pie that my hunters have provided me. If anybody’s complaining. It’s not me.