Striving to be a Saint

My closest physical encounter to a named saint by the Roman Catholic Church was Saint Pope John Paul II when he visited in September of 1987 at St. Vibiana Cathedral in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.  He was walking down the nave to leave the church after he talked to representatives of the local parishes and I was standing on a pew with a camera trying to get a picture from three feet away as he passed but slipped and never got the picture.  So much for saintliness on my part.

 

What gives me hope is that as stupid as I was at that moment, it helped me to realize that this human in white was saintly by his words and actions.   He was sharing with us who were assembled at a prayer service how we could make a difference not only in our lives, but for many, many others if we focused on Jesus and His messages of faith, love and hope for all in need, especially the poor.

 

Maybe that’s why it is so difficult to pursue being saintly.  The Holy Trinity is asking us to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and be obedient to the will of the Father.  We are looking for saintly people and when we find them, instead of imitating their behavior of helping others, we are in awe and cast more doubt on why we can’t be like that.  But we can!  Through our creation by God, our Baptism into the Catholic faith and our promise to say yes to loving God and all that He has created, we have an opportunity to be saintly; whether the Church confers it upon us through meeting all the standards for sainthood or we pick up our cross and serve in silence.

 

God knows whether we are truthful or not in our belief.  Despite our attempts at trying to hide our faults, God is very aware of who we are and what we are or are not doing to follow His ways.  And, as much as we might complain that being saintly is too hard at times, if we put as much effort into being Christ-like, as we do in other parts of our life that give us pleasure, we can succeed to be the saint we are meant to be.

 

Take this day to bask in the light of Christ who shows us the way to practice true discipleship as He outlined in St. Mathew’s Gospel on the Beatitudes and from St. John’s  Book of Revelation and in his first Epistle.  Each of us is created to be one with God in all that we are in thought, word and deed.  We are given a multitude of aids to make this work in our lifetime.  Let us take advantage of God’s love through Daily Prayer, Reading Scripture, Obeying the Commandments, partaking in the Sacraments and putting God and others before ourselves.

 

Striving to be a saint may be hard at times, but we have thousands of named saints we can read about to emulate in how they walked in their journey towards using the gifts that God blessed them with as He has done so with us.  They persevered no matter what the obstacle.  We can do the same.  Our readings and Gospel provide us with courageous ways to pursue a saintly life.  We have the tools.  Let’s open the tool box!

Reading 1: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14
Reading 2: First John 3:1-3
Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12