Pursuing the goal of perfection

 In his article about stories about the lives of the saints, Robert Louis Wilken included this observation about the variety of ways that God may call one to follow:

The lives, then, do not present a single ideal of virtue, nor do they offer one paradigm of holiness. They recognize and recommend different ways of pursuing the goal of perfection, focusing less on traditional virtues than on the unique qualities of a particular person. By displaying how a single person can respond to new and varied situations, they implicitly suggest that there is no single standard, no one catalogue of virtues, no one way to serve God.

A story in the Lausiac History makes the point. It tells of the two sons of a Spanish merchant. When their father died, they divided the estate, consisting of five thousand coins, clothes, and slaves, and deliberated as to how they should deal with this wealth. Neither wanted to be a merchant. Each wanted to live a holy life, but they disagreed as to what form that should take. So they went their separate ways. Paesius gave everything he had to churches, monasteries, and prisons, learned a trade to provide for his own needs, and devoted himself to a solitary life of prayer. Isaias kept the wealth, built a monastery, took in some brothers, and welcomed the poor, setting three or four tables on Saturday and Sunday. When they died, a dispute arose as to who bad chosen the better way. Some claimed Paesius excelled because be had hearkened to the command in the gospel to “sell all you have” and follow Jesus (Luke 18:22); others said that Isaias was the greater because he had served others. But Pambo, a wise old monk, declared that “both are equal,” and he told of a dream in which he “saw both of them standing in paradise in the presence of God.”