Daily Opportunities for Sainthood

Dear Theophilous,

We’re all called to be saints, and considering the alternative, who wouldn’t want to be one? That said, the goal of sainthood can seem a daunting one (as it truly is). Unfortunately when most of us look at the examples that have gone before us, we give up before even trying.

The good news is that God calls each of us to sainthood in our own unique way. Yes, some saints are called to be exemplary witnesses to the faith, but the vast majority of us are called to be a witness to sainthood in our daily lives. Thanks be to God that we can be saints in our daily life – I’m not sure if I’m cut out for the trials others have had to go through.

Opportunities for a saintly life abound all around us. We just need to be reminded sometimes of where to look for it.

Prayer

The first step on the path to sainthood is to deepen your relationship with God. Just like our earthly relationships, our relationship with God is fed with good communication. The same as any friendship, it’s not enough to just bring our worries, needs and desires to Him; we need to listen to what God is saying to us as well. We have all had a relationship where one person constantly takes, while the other does nothing but give.  Experience tells us that this kind of relationship can’t last. Thankfully our God is not like this, and it’s usually us who turns our back on Him and not vice-versa.

Some saints would spend hours daily in Eucharistic adoration; most of us don’t have the luxury of this kind of time. Our daily vocations put demands on our time, but this doesn’t mean we can’t set aside time for God (we do it for our spouse, kids, friends and work – so why not for God?). Increasing our time and prayer and being aware of His answers, we cannot want but to spend more time with Him and marvel at the way He works in the world.

Penitential Suffering

At one point or another in their short lives, Catholic children have heard the expression: Offer it up! It’s the Catholic parent’s standard reply any time a child begins to whine. But there’s something to be said about penitential suffering, and bearing our daily challenges with grace.

In our fallen human state, we can’t choose not to suffer, but we can choose how we deal with our sufferings. And honestly, our daily sufferings do add up. From the aforementioned whiny child, to the annoying co-worker, to the neighbour’s barking dog, to the stone in our shoe, to the… to the… to the… There’s no escaping it.

When we let these little challenges get to us, they become insurmountable and we become miserable. When we accept these obstacles with grace, persevering quietly in our suffering, we become a witness to the peace that Christ brings us.

How does our suffering become penitential? Offer it up! Offer your suffering for the greater good. Offer your suffering as a prayer for someone who needs it, for the souls in purgatory, for the conversion of sinners. At the very least, offer your suffering up for the atonement of your own sinfulness.

At the end of the day, misery loves company; yet peace is contagious - just imagine the difference you can make in the world by suffering through your next headache with grace.

Evangelization

Sainthood is all about getting ourselves and others to heaven. In the great commissioning, Christ exhorted us to “Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” (Mk 16:15) If we are to be Christ’s disciples, we are challenged to bring others to Him.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that we all need to get up on our soapbox on the street corner (though some are called to do this), we can evangelize in many different ways in our daily lives. Being a witness with your life can be the greatest evangelization tool of all. It suffices to ask yourself some of the following questions:

• How do I interact with others around me?
• How do I treat the unfortunate that come into my life?
• Do I teach my children to pray?
• Do I have the courage to pray in public?
• Do I answer the questions/challenges put to my faith?
• How do I dress?
• What TV shows do I watch with family/friends?
• What comes out of my mouth when I’m frustrated?
• What music plays on my car radio?
• What websites do I surf when no one is at home?

This kind of examination of conscience can go on much longer. The point is to become more aware of aligning our lives to Christ.

Sainthood won’t be easy. Jesus even told us that to get to heaven we will need to pick up our Cross. (cf Mt 16:24) We may never be officially recognized as a saint, but by seizing our daily opportunities for sanctity, we can become every day saints.

Answering the Call to Sainthood

Dear Theophilous,

If you’re not shooting for sainthood, you’re aiming too low!

It’s the truth! A saint is someone who, after this earthly existence, is spending eternity in heaven. And seriously, if your goal in this life isn’t to get to heaven, my understanding is that the other destination is a lot less pleasant.

Unfortunately, many of us, even the most devout of Christians, don’t see ourselves as saints. Perhaps it’s in our fallen nature to dwell on our own sinfulness. Maybe when we compare ourselves to the saints that have gone before us, we feel we just can’t measure up. There’s a certain discomfort we feel when we’re put on a pedestal, just like the statues in the church vestibule. Personally, I know I will be found lacking when held to such a high standard.

Still, the God who knows us, the God who loves us, calls us to Himself; He calls us all to be saints.

Sainthood is for everyone

In its wisdom, the Catholic Church understands that, although we are sinners, we are all called to be saints; we are all called to holiness. This call began with the creation of Adam and Eve, and their task to tend and guard the garden (cf Gen 2:15). God’s invitation to holiness was extended once more through Jesus Christ when he called the disciples to himself (cf Mt 4:18-22). Once again, in our own time, the Church has made the universal call to holiness:

Therefore in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification". (Thess 4:3) (LumenGentium 39)

Yet many of us balk at the contemporary call to sainthood. We look to the saints that came before us, fear we won’t make the cut, so we quit before we even try. The truth of sainthood is startling though. If we look at a history of saints, we soon realize that most of them were not holy from birth; that they required a conversion of heart. The Church itself was founded on sinners:

St. Peter denied Christ;

St. Mary Magdalene was a prostitute; and

St. Paul murdered some of the first Christians.

The list is endless. A great read to know you’re not alone in your sinful start to sainthood is Thomas Craughwell’s Saints Behaving Badly.

Why does God use sinners to become saints? He wants us to take solace in knowing that nothing is impossible with God – even with ourselves.

Sainthood starts now

As the saying goes, There’s no time like the present to get started on your way to holiness. Most of us won’t have a conversion experience like St. Paul, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a conversion of heart. We are all called by name, the question is: will we answer the call.

We might not always recognize them, but these calls are ever-present in our lives. They are not always big and brazen, the Lord rarely works like that, but they are usually a small nudge to get us going back in the right direction. It could be a near miss on the highway, a miscommunication that blows up at work, or a lifestyle choice that leads us to harm. I once heard these small nudges referred to as a Purgatorial Pinch. Once we recognize them, we can use these moments to re-boot our path to sainthood.

Whenever she wants to try to bring me down a notch, my own mother often reminds me of my misspent youth with a quip I know where you come from and I know what you’ve done. My pat answer to this remark is a steadfast: In the journey towards heaven, it’s not where we come from that counts, but where we’re going. I know exactly what my sins are; so does the Lord. I confess and I reconcile with Him, confident He will show me the way.

It’s in recognizing our faults that we become repentant and re-orient ourselves towards God. As any sinner will tell you, the road to sainthood is long and arduous. From time to time we may slip or lose our way. What matters is getting back on the right path so we can arrive at our destination.

It’s never too late to get on the road to sainthood (cf Mt 20:1-16), but NOW is always the best time to get started.

Sainthood is a community

Teaching catechesis in both French and English, as well has having a command of both Portuguese and German to varying degrees, I love to play with language. I’m constantly looking for the ways in which God uses language to bring us closer to him. Something I enjoy pointing out to my students is the compound make-up of the word community from the French “comme” and “un”; meaning “as one”. So when we profess in the Creed that we believe in the communion of saints, we are professing our belief in our oneness with those who are in heaven.

Knowing that we are as one with the saints, both those in heaven as well as the ones still here on earth, gives us great courage. Life is difficult, and our path towards heaven is hard – we can’t do it alone. Thanks be to God that we have the communion of saints to see us through.

We all have our favourite saints for various reasons. Most of us find a personal call to devotion to one saint or the other; some popular, while others are more obscure. I have found that the internet is littered with devotions to the saints that have gone before us. There are Twitter Novenas or virtual candles at countless websites to bring us in closer communion with the saints. All designed to help bring us closer to God. Personally, I enjoy reading brief bios of the saints of the day; finding inspiration in their stories and strength from their words of wisdom.

We can’t forget about the saints here on earth, the saints who walk among us in our everyday lives. Yes, my generation has been blessed to be personal witness to the lives of St. Teresa of Calcutta and St. John Paul the Great, but we need to remember the communion of saints that we spend our days with.

Our family is our first encounter with the communion of saints. When we were married 20 years ago, my wife and I were charged with getting each other to heaven. Now that we are blessed with a son, it’s our responsibility to get him there to. We can’t stop there, however, and we need to recognize the holiness in the others around us – family, friends, colleagues, neighbours; no matter how hard that can be at times.

We live in a communion of saints. We need to rely on each other, but we also need to encourage each other on our path to sainthood.

Sainthood is infectious

Once we decide that our own sainthood is possible, no matter how tarnished our past, we will see it begin to rub off on others. When we decide that now is the time to make a change, others will like what they see and will follow suit. It’s living in this communion of saints that we will begin to see that the universal call to holiness is infectious.

Our little actions of sanctity can go a long way in helping create other saints around us. A simple please or thank-you; letting someone into your lane in rush hour; stopping to talk and listen to a neighbour going through a rough time – each of these will have a greater effect on the other than a sense of entitlement, blaring horn or cold shoulder. When we are saintly two things will happen, we will draw other saintly souls towards ourselves, and, more importantly, we will cause the conversion of the hearts in those we meet.

Following the news in the world today, it’s more than obvious that the world needs saints. Heed the call to holiness. Know that you can become a saint.

Facing Our Fears with 5 Smooth Stones

Dear Theophilous,

I’ve gotten into the habit of listening to the cd’s put out by Lighthouse Catholic Media whenever I drive to and from my parents’ house. The ride is an hour door-to-door, which is perfect since the talks are also usually 45 minutes to an hour long. Doing the drive almost weekly for the past 20 years, I know the road well enough to be able to give the talks enough attention while still driving safely.

On the most recent jaunt to my folks’ to drop off my son for a “sleep” over, we listened to Mark Hart’s talk Facing Your Fears. My son loves listening to the Lighthouse cd’s and about 20 minutes into the ride he piped up from the back seat: “This guy’s quite a comedian!” A few minutes later we added our own comedic genius when Mark challenged his audience to meditate on what we would become the patron saint of once we got to heaven (God willing). Mark himself claims that he will become the patron saint of turning off lights in empty room. I couldn’t resist dropping the well-intentioned barb, “I’ll be the patron saint of flushing un-flushed toilets!” To which my son retorted without missing a beat: “And I’ll be the patron saint of not flushing toilets!”

As much as we are all called to become saints, Mark Hart’s talk went much deeper. He talks about how our fears keep us from becoming the saints we are meant to be. He likens our fears to the Philistine giant, Goliath; and that like David, we need to slay our giants, our Goliaths, our fears if we are to become the saints God has called us to be.

Although we all know the gist of the David and Goliath story, many of us don’t necessarily know all of the details. By divine providence, this story from the 1^st Book of Samuel provided the readings of the day for the week leading up to when I heard Mark Hart’s talk.

The story of David and Goliath can be found at 1 Samuel 17:32-51, and I won’t re-write the entire story here; but there are a couple of verses that I would like to highlight:

As David and Goliath squared off, the Philistine giant taunted the Hebrew shepherd boy, “Am I a dog, that you would come to me with sticks?” (1 Sm 17:43) Goliath then cursed David, threatening that he would leave him for dead; carrion for the birds. (1 Sm 17:44)

The giant, shield bearer before him and sword in hand, must have cut an imposing figure. It’s no wonder that none of the Israelite soldiers wanted to take him on. In the same way, our fears can also seem insurmountable, and we will do whatever we can to avoid them, instead of facing them head on.

We must answer the taunts of our fears the same way David answered the taunts of Goliath: “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts.” (1 Sm 17:45)

As Mark Hart puts it so clearly: “We don’t need to tell God how big our problems are; we need to tell our problems how big God is.”

That’s exactly what David did, he told Goliath how big God is.

We all know how the story ends… David slays Goliath with his sling and he cuts off the Giant’s head. But how did he do it? How did this ruddy youth, a mere shepherd boy, bring down the giant, a professional warrior who was armed to the teeth?

He put his trust in God.

When Saul saw that David was adamant in facing down the giant, he had him kitted out in his own personal armour. As a shepherd and not a warrior, however, David wasn’t used to the armour, could hardly walk in it, and refused to wear it (1 Sm 17:38-39). Instead, “David took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the wadi and put them in his shepherd’s bag, in the pouch.” (1 Sm 17:40)

This is how David faced Goliath. Not with royal armour; not with the king’s sword; but with 5 smooth stones. This is how God calls us to face our own giants, our fears; not with the armour and sword of this world, but with the 5 smooth stones he provides for us.

So what are our 5 smooth stones provided by God to fight our fears?

I would propose that they are:

Ø  Humility;

Ø  Wisdom;

Ø  Virtue;

Ø  Courage; and the

Ø  Grace of God

I think that humility needs to be the first stone we place in our pouch. Too often our pride gets in our way and we see needing others as a sign of weakness. We would rather face our fears alone and fail, rather than admit that we have fears to begin with. We would rather cower in fear than put ourselves in debt to the Lord. Although David stood alone before Goliath, he was humble enough to know that he could not defeat the giant with out God’s help – “This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand” (1 Sm 17:46). It takes a bigger person to admit that they are frightened, that they need help, that they need to put their trust in someone. In order to slay the giants of our fears, in all humility we need to say: Jesus, I trust in you!

The second stone we need to pick up and put in our pouch is Wisdom. How can we trust in God if we do not know His ways? The wisdom with which we arm ourselves cannot be boastful or arrogant – it needs to be the humble wisdom of understanding the difference between right and wrong; knowing that God’s way is always right, whether we understand or like it or not. If we have wisdom in the ways of the Lord, then, like Mark Hart says, we can tell our fears just how big our God is.

“There can be no Virtue without temptation,” is a quote from St. Augustine that has become almost a mantra for me. The devil prays on our fears. Satan knows that our fears are the chink in our armour; a weakness to be exploited through temptation. I find that the more I give in to a particular temptation, the greater my fear grows. By leading a life of virtue, a life that is in many ways harder than a life of vice, I can face down my fears and move on to the bigger and better things that God has called me to. A virtuous life is one that grows out of both humility and wisdom; the knowledge of His ways and the confidence to trust in Him.

Every day I pray for the smooth stone of Courage. Every morning before we leave the house, my son and I pray for the courage to be a light of God’s will in the darkness of the world. Let’s face it, the world must be a dark and scary place if even St. John Paul the Great proclaimed the presence of a Culture of Death. If we don’t have courage, how can we ever face our fears? We will remain paralysed, unable to move, unable to find the joy God has planned for us. Like the stones we’ve already placed in our pouch, courage is built upon the stones that have gone in before it.

It is the Grace of God, however, that is the stone that slays the giant of our fears. David himself recognizes this in Psalm 124 when he sings: If it had not been for the Lord who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, then they would have swallowed us up alive. (Ps 124:2-3) St. Paul reiterates this when he writes: But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me has not been in vain. (1 Cor 15:10) And of course there is the ubiquitous citation: If but for the grace of God go I; meaning that if it were not for the will of God, I too would have suffered. It truly is the Grace of God that defeats our demons. Demons, Satan and the temptations they play with our fears are greater than this world, and it will take God’s grace to defeat them, but we have the hope of knowing that our Lord will deliver us from our enemies.

The world is a dark and scary place, and our fears can seem bigger than ourselves. However, when we put the 5 smooth stones of humility, wisdom, virtue, courage, and God’s Grace in our pouch, we can face down our fears and win, just like David faced down Goliath and was victorious.