It makes my heart ache to relate the story of Herman Joseph, who lived in the 1200s in what is now northern Germany. He ended up in a monastery at age 12 (12!!) and there began a life of “incredible fasts and other austerities.” For Butler to call Herman’s acts “incredible” is saying quite a great deal. Thereupon, this boy developed a singular and noteworthy devotion to the only mother-figure at the Monastery–the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose son was perfection personi-deified.

Herman suffered from “severe interior trials.” With no sense of irony, Butler then retails this episode from Herman’s life as if to demonstrate the laudable humility (excuse the oxymoron) of this young man:

Such was [Herman’s] desire of contempt, that he one day desired a peasant to strike him on the face. The other in surprise asked the reason: “On account,” said he, “of my being a most filthy and abominable creature, and because I cannot meet with so much contempt as I deserve.”

A boy that is dumped into a monastery at age 12 and is encouraged toward miserable fasting and acts of physical self-torture with only the comfort of the idea of a perfect mother, can see nothing but imperfections in himself (as especially as compared to that mother’s son!)–failings so great that he asked for strangers to batter him.

Let’s remember this, at least one day out of the year: Every time we abandon children, every time we encourage them to compare themselves to models of unobtainable perfection, every time we leave them in the hands of religious never-been-never-gonna-be parents, every time we praise them for self-denial…it is abuse, and these children will often be compelled by a desire to make their external universe match up with their interior.

Blessed Herman Joseph.