Seeking Sainthood 

   “The Church is interested in making saints.  It’s not interested in making spiritual mediocrities.”  (Bishop Robert Baron, “To Light a Fire on the Earth”) 

   God desires us to be holy, to be saints.  St. Therese of Lisieux said, “Holiness consists simply in doing God’s will, and being just what God wants us to be.”  In other words, giving ourselves and our lives over to His will.

   What is a saint?  I think most people think of a saint and feel that they could never be that good, that holy.  Yet any study of the saints will show that many of them were less than holy at some point in their life.  One of the greatest saints, St. Augustine, was a heretic, practicing the heresy of Manichaeism.  Before his conversion he had mistresses and fathered a son out of wedlock.

   Perhaps we can never be a saint such as Augustine or Therese, but God can make any of us a saint.  It is by His will and power that saints are made.  However, he will not impose sainthood upon us, we must allow Him to make us holy.  We must also recognize that choosing sainthood is life-changing, nothing can ever be the same again.  Our life, our will, the very way we live must change.

   That doesn’t mean that we will never sin again, even those who are holy sometimes fall victim to Satan’s temptations.  It is the sad state of humanity that sinfulness is within us, we can’t completely avoid it.  But God’s forgiveness is there to restore us, to give us a new beginning.  His love and mercy is endless.

   We really can be saints, but we can’t do it by ourselves.  Only God can make us holy.  As Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you;” (Matt 7: 7). 

Though I am a sinful man,

I want to be holy.

I give myself to You.

Make me holy. 

Amen