LYDWINE OF SCHIEDAM: A SAINT FOR OUR TIMES Guy Jackson
Living in the modern world, it’s easy to base our self-worth on our achievements. Whether because of celebrity culture insinuating that our lives are more worthwhile the more people know about us, consumerism suggesting that the summum bonum is being able to afford more and better things, or social media offering endless carefully curated snippets of people living their “best lives”, we often fall into the trap of supposing that a life without constant achievement and progress is a life wasted. As always, however, it seems like what the world demands, the world conspires to prevent. The last two years alone have seen millions of people’s educations and careers go off track, perhaps irreparably, thanks to various lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, and the threat of future restrictions remains omnipresent even in countries with large majorities of vaccinated individuals. Nor is the fallout from COVID the only obstacle people have to face – deindustrialisation, outsourcing, PhD overproduction, creden-
tialism, degree inflation, housing shortages… So many things hinder us from following the traditional path of worldly happiness – marriage, children, career success – that, if this is really the way to find meaning, we must conclude that many young people will, through no fault of their own, be simply unable to live a meaningful life. That’s where St. Lydwine can help us. Lydwine was a woman who, in worldly terms, achieved practically nothing. Born in Schiedam in Holland in 1380, Lydwine was a beautiful girl with a sweet and cheerful temperament. It seemed that her parents would have no trouble finding her the good match that they desired. Lydwine, however, wanted to live for God alone, and begged him to make her ugly so that she might avoid following her parents’ wishes. Her prayers were answered when, at the age of fifteen, she contracted an illness that left her thin, hollow-faced, and greenish in colour. It didn’t stop there: when she became strong enough, she went outside skating with her friends, fell over,
Fellowship & Fairydust
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