A Pedagogy of Saints as Paradigms of Desire

This paper integrates the theory of mimetic desire with theology and pedagogy to offer an approach to the presentation of the lives of the saints in Catholic religious education, one which foregrounds the saints’ conversion of desire, encourages reflection on desire, and offers alternative models of desire. First, this paper briefly situates the saints in religious education and reviews literature on models in adolescent development. Second, it identifies three movements in the conversion of desire: renouncing acquisitive desire and reorienting one’s desire toward God, as described by René Girard in Deceit, Desire and the Novel, and a subsequent commitment to the imitation of God, supported by the theories of positive mimesis and affective conversion. It concludes with a framework for presenting the lives of the saints, using St. Ignatius of Loyola as a case study for inviting adolescents to reflect on their desires using a historical model.