Patience Attains to All: Camille and St. Teresa of Avila

Let nothing disturb you

Let nothing frighten you

All things are passing

God never changes

Patience attains to all 

Whoever has God

Lacks nothing

God alone suffices.

      Camille is one of the newest champions to grace the Rift and in actuality there is little of apparent similarity between her and St. Teresa. Nevertheless I am taken back to my high school years where in my Historical Theology class we read her miniature biography from the textbook. It said that when she was young she wanted to be married and enjoyed reading about castles, knights, and chivalry. More recently I began to read her biography and there is a funny story about how she and her brother cooked up a plan to get themselves martyred by the Moors in Southern Spain. "We saw how cheaply the vision of God could be purchased." That, however, was not the path selected for the young Teresa.

Autobiography and her Spanish Poem

Camille Champion Design 

But what did any of that have to do with League of Legends? Well, besides the fact that I also don't think Camille is married, she values precision and patience very highly and her design reflects this.

She's focused on dueling opponents with her passive which gives her a shield based on whether her opponent uses primarily physical or magic damage, she's also designed to lock down a single target for her low-range ultimate Hextech Ultimatum which traps the target in a forcefield which denies exit and damages over time for the duration.

If there was ever a champion in League most like her I would pick Elise, because she has a dueling kit with percentage hp magic damage and a stun on her E line skillshot which in theory must be landed to pull off her full damage combo. They also both have quotes about patience... 

Camille's E, hookshot, is also a skillshot which stuns on impact. Camille launches herself off of a wall with her legs and bounces at an angle. It requires good timing to pull her off as a champion:

Patience.

"Patience is THE Virtue"

Hookshot is really the glue which holds her kit together because it guarantees all of her damage from Q and W and puts you in range of R, Hextech Ultimatum. In my mind it is most notable for one of her quotes upon casting the ability: "Patience isn't a virtue. It's THE virtue." 

Now we can argue about whether that's really true; theologically it is in some sense false. Charity is THE virtue. But as St. Thomas Aquinas says, the one who has one virtue has the habits of all virtues, and thus in some other sense Charity and Patience can be reduced to one another. Loving someone means you will be sufficiently patient with them.

Fanaticism the Vice

All is not well in Camille's world, however. Though she says nice things about patience, her patience shows a scary face. She is a vigilante who takes justice into her own hands precisely to execute it faster than the cops. She sees herself as right and for her, her rightness gives her license to enforce that on others at will. "The rules apply to everyone, and order must be preserved."1 This is a vice known as fanaticism and it's difficult to nail down. It is bandied about as a ten cent word to make people feel bad about religious or political fervor more than anything, and yet it DOES exist. It is an abuse of authority or power out of line with one's station in life in matters one may or may not have competency. It's hard to argue with Camille's target selection, but we all know that vigilante justice is unacceptable. No one person can be the judge, the jury, and the executioner, unless of course we are talking about the Man Jesus Christ.

On the contrary, St. Teresa teaches us with her famous poem that God is the best companion along life's journey precisely because He is our constant companion. God never changes. God's justice is also perfect, as are his timings. Ecc. 3:17 St. Teresa understood the need to combat fanaticism in her religious life because she experienced visions of Jesus and Mary that had to be tested under spiritual direction. These things can be of diabolical origin, and Teresa knew well that she could not share them with just anyone. She lived the life of a simple monastic, and slowly arrived at Paradise through patient bearing with all of her crosses: physical, mental, and spiritual. She failed in achieving red martyrdom, but she succeeded in attaining a greater glory proper to herself and her state in life.

If Camille were a Catholic living in the real world she would probably try to put her skills to work in an actual police force and could even change the criminal justice system for the better. Or would she end up saying "to hell with it" and become a nun like St. Teresa? I don't confess to know, but one thing is certain, 

"He who God possesses lacks nothing..."

Sólo Dios basta. 

✝

1 http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/featured/camille-comic

"Severed Ties" ((C) Riot Games)

2  17 And I said in my heart: God shall judge both the just and the wicked, and then shall be the time of every thing.