[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

I think this is a fairly typical reaction by nonbelievers, so I thought it well expressed in the voice of Maurice. The reality of religious belief is that it covers a wide spectrum from believing in something because the Bible/Mom said so to those who choose to believe and have a highly nuanced understanding of dogma and doctrine. And yes, if you can't accept that initial axiom it's all chicanery, but those who believe are not uniformly stupid, either.

If you have to choose to believe something, do you really believe it?

Miracles in general are highly problematic and there it is: miracle or coincidence? If you have to allow for coincidence, you're essentially only going to have iffy miracles. I agree that the process was far too rushed. Sarah was barely cold before she was a candidate for canonization, or so it seemed.

Smythe's miracle is especially eye-popping--if it's Sarah's kiss that caused it, she had the power to perform a miracle while still alive. That's a rarity even for the most celebrated saints.

I can understand belief that's resisted; I think Sarah's path foretold the one Maurice was on. I think the essential difference is that Sarah accepted the entire Christian mythos whereas Maurice accepted a divinity without a framework. Sarah seemed quite explicitly Augustinian to me, "Lord, make me holy, but not yet." She fell into belief, whereas Maurice was going to have to will it, make the jump. Maurice uses both words and they reflect a different experience of God, it seems to me.

But why? Sarah had already renounced Maurice; I could see more of a real struggle if she'd found religion and then realized it meant ending the affair--that seems more in the Augustinian pattern. Maurice seemed to need to work on morality and decency more than on belief; he was quite the nasty little man, and belief alone wouldn't make him less nasty.

I could understand struggle to, say, decide to follow a religious vocation; I could understand struggle to announce or abide by one's belief when it's dangerous, as in the case of martyrs. But I have a hard time with so much angst over a personal decision about religion, a decision that doesn't have any adverse personal consequences.