CHAPTER ONE
Powerful Questions and Spiritual Growth
A
s a kid in Catholic elementary school, I often heard teachers tell us we were called to be saints. In grade school, I found that message inspiring, and I even made brief attempts to imitate St. John Vianney and St. Francis of Assisi. My efforts to fast and abstain from food usually lasted about three hours, and never past lunchtime. As I grew older, I found the idea of being a saint somewhat troubling. The saints I had read about were pretty out there. They ate locusts, they endured torture, they lived as outcasts and beggars. They chose to hang out with lepers, and they heard voices. In many stories in Butler’s Lives of
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