Chap­ter III – For Greater Things begins with the storm left behind by Stanis­laus Kostka’s sud­den depar­ture to fol­low his reli­gious call­ing. His broth­er Paul and their tutor Bilin­s­ki, caught off guard and fear­ful of the con­se­quences, stum­ble upon a let­ter left behind by Stanis­laus. In it, he calm­ly explains that he must obey the voice of God rather than the expec­ta­tions of man. This sim­ple yet pow­er­ful mes­sage is passed on to Lord John Kost­ka, their father, along with let­ters from those involved in the failed attempt to find and retrieve the young run­away. The respons­es are meant to ease the blow, but they do lit­tle to soft­en the anger of a father who feels betrayed. Lord John, deeply wound­ed and humil­i­at­ed, erupts with fury, vow­ing to bring Stanis­laus back by force. His threats aren’t mere­ly emo­tion­al; they reflect a nobleman’s pride, com­pound­ed by love and grief over a son he can­not under­stand.

This chap­ter paints a pic­ture of Stanis­laus not as a saint unboth­ered by strug­gle, but as a young man who fought hard against the temp­ta­tions that sur­round every ado­les­cent. Even in his ear­li­er years, Stanis­laus was test­ed, often in the com­pa­ny of peers and ser­vants whose behav­ior reflect­ed the coars­er side of noble life. He refused to par­tic­i­pate in crude lan­guage or behav­ior, not out of arro­gance, but out of an inner com­pass ground­ed in rev­er­ence. These ear­ly tri­als, though less dra­mat­ic than his lat­er flight, reveal a young man already build­ing the virtues that would define his sanc­ti­ty. He did not live in a bub­ble of virtue—his choic­es were made in real con­flict with his envi­ron­ment, in resis­tance to easy indul­gence. His strength lay not in iso­la­tion, but in active resis­tance. It is this resis­tance, not per­fec­tion, that makes his path relat­able and com­pelling.

The deep­er mes­sage of the chap­ter lies in its chal­lenge to the reader’s under­stand­ing of holi­ness. Stanislaus’s sanc­ti­ty did not stem from a smooth life or an easy tem­pera­ment; it was forged in moments of con­flict, self-denial, and prayer­ful clar­i­ty. He chose silence over argu­ment, gen­tle­ness over pride, and obe­di­ence to God over com­fort and fam­i­ly favor. These deci­sions came at a cost—he risked his family’s approval, his social stand­ing, and even phys­i­cal safe­ty. And yet, in choos­ing God’s voice over all oth­ers, he found a peace no world­ly reward could pro­vide. His jour­ney reminds us that sanc­ti­ty is not pas­sive; it is born from con­scious deci­sions, repeat­ed dai­ly, to choose virtue in the face of pres­sure.

Through this lens, Stanis­laus becomes more than a his­tor­i­cal figure—he becomes a mir­ror reflect­ing our own moral choic­es. The strug­gle he endured between loy­al­ty to fam­i­ly and obe­di­ence to a high­er call is not unique to his time. Many peo­ple, espe­cial­ly the young, face sim­i­lar ten­sions today. What Stanis­laus shows us is that true free­dom is not the absence of lim­its, but the courage to fol­low what is right, even when the path is lone­ly. His father’s reac­tion, though harsh, is not paint­ed with con­tempt. Rather, it reflects the deep pain and mis­un­der­stand­ing that often arise when spir­i­tu­al call­ings chal­lenge famil­ial expec­ta­tions. Yet in time, even Lord John’s heart would soft­en, show­ing that divine grace can mend even the deep­est wounds.

Ulti­mate­ly, the chap­ter is not about rebel­lion but about resolve. It tells the sto­ry of a boy who, in the face of dis­ap­point­ment and fury, stayed true to a call­ing that few under­stood. He embraced the lone­li­ness of his path, not with bit­ter­ness, but with trust in some­thing greater. That trust—tested by tri­als both inter­nal and external—is what lift­ed his choic­es from mere con­vic­tion to acts of sanc­ti­ty. Read­ers are left with a sense that holi­ness, far from being dis­tant or unat­tain­able, begins in the choic­es of each day—often unno­ticed, often mis­un­der­stood, but always pow­er­ful when made in love. Through Stanislaus’s courage and clar­i­ty, we’re remind­ed that great­ness begins not in noise or pow­er, but in the qui­et strength to say yes to God, no mat­ter the cost.