Additional Information
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Tempermental Saints
St. Paul wrote, “Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). The saints are those people who have shown heroic virtue, conquered sin in their own lives, and so progressed in the spiritual life that they have become living examples of Christ. The weaknesses of their temperament are no longer apparent, because they have so grown in holiness and in friendship with Christ.
For example, St. Ignatius of Loyola was considered to be passionately choleric, yet became so meek and so humble that people who just met him thought he was phlegmatic. St. Therese of Lisieux had been a lively, impulsive, strong-willed child, yet many of the sisters who lived with her never guessed what heroic struggles lay hidden beneath her gentle, humble mien.[1] Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) had been precocious, temperamental, and introverted as a young child, and as a young woman suffered severe depression. She later became a holy Carmelite who wrote, "To suffer and to be happy although suffering, to have one's feet on the earth, to walk on the dirty and rough paths of this earth and yet to be enthroned with Christ at the Father's right hand, to laugh and cry with the children of this world and ceaselessly sing the praises of God with the choirs of angels — this is the life of the Christian until the morning of eternity breaks forth." ( Love of the Cross).
Though one’s basic temperament will never change, one can (and should) grow in holiness and virtue to conquer the basic weaknesses of our temperaments and put our natural strengths to service of Christ and the Church.
Saints of each Temperament:
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