Sep 22 Mon
What is the odor of sanctity?
A Jesuit, who had arrived in what is today the United States and Canada, was in awe of all the new species of animals not present in Europe. One such animal was the skunk.
In 1634, he wrote that there was a “low animal, about the size of a little dog or cat. I mention it here, not on account of its excellence, but to make of it a symbol of sin.” He then concluded by noting its foul smell, which he equated with the smell of sin.
Once, St. Catherine related to her confessor that “the stench of sin” was so overpowering among some of those who came to see her that she could not endure it.
Padre Pio, when hearing Confessions, could smell mortal sin. It is reported that such sins smelled “putrid,” “foul,” like the smell of a “rotting corpse.” Conversely, when penitents made an honest and contrite Confession, Padre Pio would smell flowers. This was a manifestation of the “odor of sanctity,” a sweet fragrance of roses, violets, or jasmine.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the “Little Flower,” is reported to have smelled like roses, especially upon her death. Likewise, the body of Saint Teresa of Ávila emitted a sweet perfume that filled her monastery when she died.
These grace-filled phenomena find their basis in the risen Lord Jesus. When Jesus came to raise his friend Lazarus from the dead, Martha pointed out that, since he had been dead for four days, there would be an odor. If this event had taken place in North America, she might have said that Lazarus would have smelled like a skunk. What Martha forgot is Jesus’ declaration: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and he who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
The raising of Lazarus from the dead was a prophetic anticipation of Jesus’ own death and resurrection. In dying on the Cross, Jesus put death to death, and in rising gloriously from the dead, He brought forth eternal life. The stench, the odor, of sin and death is now cast away by the odor, the fragrance, of everlasting life.
St. Paul declared to the Corinthians:
But thanks be to God, … For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death, to the other a fragrance of life to life. (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)
Christians should make Christ present among men. They ought to act in such a way that those who know them sense "the fragrance of Christ." Men should be able to recognize the Master in his disciples.
through their preaching and life, spread the fragrance of the living Jesus to all who are being saved. They radiate the aroma of Christ throughout the world and for all time.
Among those on their way to a sinful death, however, this fragrance testifies to their eternal condemnation.
Here, one finds the importance of Purgatory. Those who are in Purgatory are being purged of sin’s skunk-like smell, and they are taking upon themselves the aroma of the living Jesus in whom they will dwell as the Spirit-transformed children of the Father.
Excerpted from Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM