Depiction of St. Hilary’s ordination, painted 1,000 years after he lived.
I’m studying the USCCB’s daily scripture readings, and I see that the alternative reading for today is dedicated to Saint Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church.
This Hilary, by the way, was a man. He lived in the 4th century AD. Interesting fact: He was married, because that was allowed in those days, and he had a daughter who was also a saint.
I mention this because every time I see a mention of this saint, I’m reminded of a certain other person who was called “Saint Hillary” in a satirical manner. Below is the image that appeared with that headline in The New York Times Magazine on May 23, 1993:
When I saw that, only four months after Bill’s inauguration, I knew that this administration’s honeymoon with the press was pretty much over.
Here’s the article, if you want to read it. Here’s an excerpt:
Since she discovered, at the age of 14, that for people less fortunate than herself the world could be very cruel, Hillary Rodham Clinton has harbored an ambition so large that it can scarcely be grasped.
She would like to make things right.
She is 45 now and she knows that the earnest idealisms of a child of the 1960’s may strike some people as naive or trite or grandiose. But she holds to them without any apparent sense of irony or inadequacy. She would like people to live in a way that more closely follows the Golden Rule. She would like to do good, on a grand scale, and she would like others to do good as well. She would like to make the world a better place — as she defines better.
While an encompassing compassion is the routine mode of public existence for every First Lady, there are two great differences in the case of Mrs. Clinton: She is serious and she has power….
Back to the real saint. To lift the tone of this post, here’s an excerpt from the readings offered in his name:
Matthew 5:13-19
Jesus said to his disciples:
… “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
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