Give God the honour and glory in all you do

On November 1, the Universal Church will celebrate All Saints. In preparation for this unique feast day, we approached a few people to tell us about their patron saint. Here’s Rev Terrence Caesar on St Charles Borromeo.

Rev Terrence Caesar

As a scout leader, teacher, and deacon, I strive to model my patron saint, St Charles Borromeo. His passion and devotion to service and putting the needs of others above his own is something that I learned decades ago as a cub scout and emphasised every time I recited the Cub Scout Law: “A Cub Scout always does his best, thinks of others before themselves and does a good turn every day.”

St Charles Borromeo demonstrated this selflessness during the plague in Milan between 1576–1578 when he stayed in Milan to care for the people who were sick with the plague.

During this time, he gave away much of his wealth so that he would be better able to feed the hungry, take care of the needy, and provide medication for the sick. St Charles Borromeo also worked diligently to make the Church more human.

He was a people person and while he cared for all people, the elderly, children, the sick, the poor and persons desirous of serving God were groups for whom he had a special affinity.

He played a pivotal role in the third convocation of the Council of Trent, rewrote the Catechism, started reforms in the preparation of candidates for the priesthood and is credited with establishing the first seminaries for the education of priests.

In spite of all of this, there is one thing that really stands out for me from the life of St Charles Borromeo. It is said that while he was at the seminary, some seminarians invited him to play billiards with them. He accepted.

While playing one of the seminarians posed the question, “What would you do if you found out that you only had a few hours left to live?” Various seminarians responded that they would go and seek forgiveness for all the wrongs they would have done, another stated that he would go and spend it with his family, while yet another indicated that he would spend the time praying.

After they had all responded they asked St Charles Borromeo, who had continued to play the game. He paused for a short while and responded, “I would continue playing billiards.”

Seeing the confused look on all their faces, he explained that he would continue playing billiards because in everything that he does, he gives God the honour and glory so there was no need to change his activity.

I think that is the way we should all strive to live and be, persons of selfless service to God and to the People of God while striving to honour God in everything we do.