Hidden

“Well- behaved women seldom make history.” This line has often been used to encourage women to do something dramatic, throwing off moral restraints, in order to be seen, catching the attention of the world. The idea purported is that in order to be significant one must misbehave. However, when Laurel Ulrich originally authored that phrase, she was making an altogether different point. Her point was that, historically, well-behaved women were overlooked, not because they were insignificant, but because the domestic realm they inhabited was not of interest to historians. Well-behaved women’s lives were not insignificant, simply hidden. This remains the case today for many both men and women who are living lives of extraordinary virtue in quiet, daily ways.

Mothers who wake in the small hours of the morning to nurse babies and then go about the rest of their day caring for the needs of their families and fathers who sit through a grueling commute each day, working diligently to provide for their families before returning home to serve the family by tacking projects around the home are rarely showcased on the nightly news. A good and faithful parish priest might be well known and loved in his community and remain unheard of by the world at large. Men and women of various professions and walks of life who wake each morning to commune with the Lord, interceding for the needs of the whole world or who frequent adoration chapels throughout the day and night, offering a sacrifice of prayer do not tend to sound an alarm for the world to hear. These lives of virtue are quiet, hidden but nonetheless full of significance and import. Heroic sacrifice does not need to be seen to acquire value.

In “A Man for All Seasons,” Richard Rich questions Thomas More about the value of a quiet life. When More advises Rich to teach, saying he could be an excellent teacher, Rich dismissively wonders who would know even if he was. Thomas More is not being flippant when he responds with, “you, your students, God, not a bad audience that.” Our current culture how taught us to respond to such an audience with the same dissatisfaction Rich did and arguably with just as high a cost to our souls.

As ever, it is Jesus who offers an alternative to the standard of the world, teaching us by example. His own earthly life was, for the vast majority of it, hidden. The God of the universe, worthy of all praise, was virtually unknown for the first thirty years of his life. He remained hidden, unseen, unknown, in part to teach us that our value, our worth, does not come from being recognized by the world. There may be times in which we are called to do something bold for the Kingdom, we are all called to be on mission after all. Remaining faithful in the current climate might actually become quite noteworthy. However, when we proclaim the Gospel, it is God, and not ourselves, that we seek to glorify and attention simply for attention’s sake ought not to be something we are chasing.

The Church has a long history of princely prelates who made history for less than salutary reasons and these days celebrity status is granted for behaviors that ought rather to be corrected and discouraged than vaulted. It may be truer than ever that those who are well-behaved are unlikely to be make history. They may even be intentionally overlooked or silenced, but given a choice between virtue and fame only the fool would choose the world at the price of his soul.