NO GLORY IS GREATER THAN SANCTITY

More than once I have been to Arezzo and trod the little narrow winding streets that encircle the hill of the old town. I have stopped to gaze and admire the architecture of her palaces, laden with years and memories, and there in the Great Square I have sought to revoke the period of artistic evolution of the Arezzan people.

There is not a century that has not left its imprint in this singular Square.

I have entered her churches, tall and imposing witnesses of mediaeval faith, such as Pieve di Santa Maria in Gradi, sombre and severe, midway up the side of the hill, and the little Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie near the Porta Santo Spirito. Today, after centuries of life, the marvellous portico by Benedict da Maino, strikes us with an unrivalled grace, and in its freshness and purity conveys to the visitor the secret of perennial youth in art.

This time I have not come to Arezzo for recreation or sightseeing. Today I have alighted here solely for the purpose of retracing the memories and visiting the cradle of the infancy of a young girl whose soul was "full of interior melodies" (modulatione plena) as the "Imitation" says: who, untouched by the darkness of a contemporary heresy, which knew not the Infinite Love, was able to sing harmoniously with new accents those two words of St. Agnes the martyr, which epitomize her whole life: "Amo Christum", I love Christ.

The halo of the Saints, which has only recently adorned the head of the young Arezzan girl, projects a vivid flame of light on the ancient turrets and inside the historic walls of the city, already rich in monuments and past glories. She is theirs, a gentle flower of their soil.

But no glory is greater than sanctity.

Sanctity, detaching itself from material and tangible things, soars to things incorruptible and eternal. There is no art so fresh as sanctity, because it is the perfect harmony of light and divine colors that mingle in our poor human nature; it is a reproduction of the divine features on our created humanity.

There is no poesy more delicately winged than sanctity.

There is no scientific comparison of a Saint who, elevating himself above the mire of earth, finds his way in the midst of dense mists that encompass him, preserves his equilibrium without upsetting his barque to launch himself in the spaces of the unconfined heavens and goes to lose himself in the uncreated Knowledge, where his intellect has full scope for expansion and his will enjoys unmeasured and eternal happiness.

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