Art of perseverance: Young adults learn from the saints

By Kathleen Bushman
CATHOLIC HERALD STAFF

MADISON -- The saints are there to teach us what it means to persevere, Barbara Sella, associate director of education and social concerns for the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, said to a group of young adults.

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Sella was the speaker for the most recent Theology On Tap (TOT), a program for young adults in their 20s and 30s that blends a social atmosphere with a teaching one. The next Theology on Tap will be held Thursday, Dec. 7, at 7:30 p.m. The place is still to be determined.

This particular TOT was held at St. Dennis Parish rather than a noisy bar, but the quiet, candles, and wine (or soda) were perhaps a more fitting atmosphere to talk about extraordinary men and women who made loving God their lifelong ambition.

"'Saints Are the Sinners Who Keep on Going': The Art of Christian Perseverance" was the topic of the night. Sella, who has a doctorate in medieval history, delved into the lives of five different saints who, to her, model perseverance through trials.

When growing up, Sella didn't have a strong devotion to the saints. She said she had seen it as something childish, or as an affectation.

But in graduate school she came across letters written between St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal. In those letters, she found a vitality and greater insight into who they were - and in that way, she was brought back to the Catholic Church.

"We have a tendency to make those in the past more remote," she said. In reading the letters, you can get closer to them as people.

Three women

Sella held up three women as examples: Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Teresa of Calcutta. She went through their lives, highlighting their trials and how, through everything, they persevered.

St. Teresa of Avila, for instance, was suffering from poor health and yet still continued traveling by mule carts throughout Europe to spread the Word of God.

Or how St. Thérèse of Lisieux battled tuberculosis and went through her "dark night of the soul," doubting in the truth of God. She finally died at the age of 24, saying that she would rain roses from heaven. She was one of only three woman to become a doctor of the church.

And Teresa of Calcutta, or Mother Teresa, had faced obstacles when she was told by God to found an order of nuns. Her letters to the archbishop requesting permission, Sella said, are very moving.   Full story ...