Who is Called to be a Saint?

07-28-2019Weekly ReflectionRev. Emmanuel I. Ihemedu

The best news about saints is that everyone, including you, is called to be a saint.

Maybe you don’t think of yourself as a saint because you have not done anything great.

That’s no excuse. The saint whom Pope Pius XI called the greatest saint was Thérèse of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun who lived in a cloister and died at 24. What made people all over the world admire her is precisely that she did nothing the world called important but found holiness in everyday things.

Can I Be a Saint If I’ve Been Divorced?

Saint Helen, the mother of Constantine, was divorced. She didn’t even convert to Christianity until she was in her sixties but went on to lead pilgrimages to the Holy land.

Saint Fabiola divorced her abusive husband and remarried. After her second husband died, she studied Scripture with Saint Jerome and opened a hospital and a homeless shelter.

Don’t Saints Have To Be Very Smart?

Saint John Vianney struggled with his studies, flunking out several times. He never would have been ordained without the constant tutoring of another priest. Yet he was so wise and compassionate that twenty thousand people a year came to his tiny rural parish to confess to him. John said about being smart: There are not true scholars except those who love the Cross, consult it, and understand it. “Those who do not know this book are ignorant, even if they happen to know all the other books.”

There are saints who were twelve years old and saints who lived one hundred years. There are saints and beatified persons from all ethnic and racial backgrounds like Martin de Porres, Kateri Tekakwitha, Juan Diego, and Paul Miki. There are saints with disabilities like Julia Billiart who, though unable to work for twenty years, taught, organized boycotts, and hid priests during a persecution. There are saints who grew up homeless like John of the Cross and saints who grew up to be queens like Elizabeth of Hungry.

For every excuse you can imagine, God has made a saint who conquered that obstacle. The only thing that can keep you from being a saint is your desire. Do you want to do God’s will? Do you want to be transformed by God?

Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, said: “We are all called to be saints. God expects something from each of us that no one else can do. If we don’t, it will not be done.”

What would you be patron saint of? What would you have to do to be open to God making you a saint?

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