The Bible tells us many times that God does not see as we see, but I think most of us have a hard time believing it. “Of course God sees as I see! Am I not overflowing with charity, meekness and all the other vitues? Of course God sees as I see!”
The parable of the tax collector and the pharisee illustrates just how far off the mark we are when we assume that God agrees with us. Porter saints demonstrate that what we think is important and what God views as important may radically differ.
How many of us will gain our salvation partially due to the ceaseless prayers of those we would not glance at twice as we go about our busy lives?
Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say;
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;
But be the war within, the brand we wield
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,
Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.
Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
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Add to the list, two that come to mind: the Spanish Franciscan brother, S. Paschal Baylon, who is also a patron saint of the Eucharist. Also S Conrad of Parzham (in Bavaria),a Capuchin brother and porter, whose patience and good nature won over many rough characters.
And, of course, the famous Fr. Sold us Casey of the Capuchins, who often served as a porter, because he was considered to uneducated to preach or hear confessions, or to say a public Mass.
I am sure there are others.
“Fr Solanus”