Today is the memorial of Saint Gerard Majella, a Redemptorist saint who died in 1755. In 1946, little Marcel Văn was listening to much talk about this saint during his time as a Redemptorist brother in Hanoi. There are many strong stories of miracles and great feats in Saint Gerard’s life. Little Văn quite simply asked the questions

• What does it mean to imitate the saints?
• Can it be done?
• How is it done?

Perhaps we think this is a clear question, as the Second Vatican Council has firmly expressed that sanctity is possible for all people and all states of life; and canonization causes like that of Saint John Neumann have ruled that one who fulfils the duties of his or her state of life is, by definition in this world of contrast of good and evil, living heroic virtue and a candidate for canonization. But it was certainly an obscured question in Little Văn’s environment. And it may be more or less obscure to any and all of us still!

What does Marcel Văn say? At first, he used to think like “everyone else” about the saints:

Previously, I used to think like everyone else that it was impossible to imitate the saints, but now I know and understand clearly the truth of this. (753)

What truth does he understand? That everyone, no matter a state of life, is called to sanctity. More specifically, that we can imitate the saints’ conduct:

For myself, I am stating that Saint Gerard did not perform any miracles, that he did not enter into ecstasy a single time. He loved, he sacrificed himself, he performed acts of mortification, he prayed, he worked, he ate and slept, he travelled, he spoke, and, in one word, he acted simply like an ordinary man… It is therefore possible for us to imitate him by our work and our conduct. (753–754)

But what about those miracles and seemingly extraordinary things? Are we to imitate them? Are we to try? Are we to ask God for those extraordinary graces? Why does Marcel assert that these startling events “didn’t happen”, so to speak?

As for the power to work miracles, this is not the work of Saint Gerard, but really the work of God himself, of whom Saint Gerard was only the instrument to show to souls the goodness of God’s heart.

The miracles are, therefore, God’s work and not Saint Gerard’s. Now, being God’s work, it is not necessary for us to imitate them… God never asks us to do anything beyond our power. (754)

More to the point, it is about the virtues which, with the ordinary grace of God, we can practise:

The virtues that Saint Gerard practised to reach sanctity, we can also imitate…

The works that he accomplished for God with much generosity appear really frightening, however, I dare to affirm that Saint Gerard never did anything beyond his powers [cooperating with God’s grace]. Although his works may have been beyond the strength of others, they were never beyond his own power… Consequently, to imitate Saint Gerard it is not necessary that we do as he did [in particular, apparently frightening actions]; but we can imitate him very well in another way. (754–755)

Indeed, Văn’s conclusion is that God only asks each of us to do what each of us can do. That is all. And that is sanctity. If Saint Gerard was of remarkable internal constitution to endure remarkable external trials, then so be it to demonstrate God’s goodness. If Marcel Văn is the weakest of all men, then what he can accomplish externally and in terms of a demonstrable apostolate is small: then so be it to demonstrate God’s goodness. Wherever we fall, so be it to demonstrate God’s goodness.

Love is only found in reality, in the limits and weaknesses of each situation, each constitution, each person, and each circumstance. It is in fulfilling those situations and personalities as they are and can be that sanctity is grasped and, indeed, demonstrated.

In other words, as Little Văn put it, we can imitate each saint, not in any particular and external way. But in the practice of the virtues in which they shone.