Crystal
One of the things I love about the Catholic faith is our appreciation for saints. Most of us have our favorite saints who we turn to for intercession or inspiration. Saint Anthony of Padua is a good example. “Tony, Tony, look around; something’s lost that must be found.” This may seem childish until I lose something that I really want to find. Then suddenly he is my best friend. Many of us turn to saints in our need when we face situations that are out of our control. Desperate for help, we turn in trust to those who have gone before us and often are blessed with their intercession and relief.
At the same time, most of us have a favorite saint based on something about his or her life that resonates with our own personality or needs. One of my favorites is St. Teresa of Avila, a woman who had a great sense of humor, loved being with people and who embroidered linen. Clearly these were not the virtues that earned her sainthood, but they help me relate to her as a friend since I admire those qualities.
The problem is that once we read more about their lives, we learn that they were heroic in some way that we can’t imagine ourselves ever to be. For example, I read about St. Lawrence and that as he was being burned on a grill, he quipped “Turn me over, I think I am done on this side.” Really? The thought of suffering horribly and enduring torture is enough to turn most of us away from sainthood. May God allow me the grace of another path to sainthood!
In spite of this, it is important for us to remember that those who have become saints did so not because of the so-called great deeds they performed, but because of the love of God and neighbor that drove them. My spiritual director told me not to become discouraged because I felt incapable of imitating the saints I admire so much, but instead to imitate their zeal and love for God and others. This helped me to see that sainthood is not only possible but enticing. I have a real desire to love better. As St. Teresa puts it, “The important thing is not to think much but to love much; do, then, whatever most stirs you to love.” This gives me great hope and encouragement.
We need to talk about becoming a saint with a lowercase s—one of the countless billions of unknown men and women who loved God with all their minds, souls and hearts and who now reside in heaven. These are the people who recognized that each day presents us opportunities to love, and putting their love into practice earned them a place in the heavenly kingdom.
I don’t have far to look to recognize such a saint in my own life. My mom is my St. Isolde, saint of joyful love. As a wife and homemaker, she did nothing that the world would call special. She worked hard to make a comfortable home for our family, with very little money available to her. But on the spiritual dimension, she was a superstar. She loved God and trusted Him completely. Throughout most of her life, she was dedicated to attending daily Mass and praying the rosary. Her faith led her to serve others. Whether it was baking a meal for a sick friend, crafting a toy for a neighborhood child, or watering the garden at the church, she lived a life of service. She was always there for her husband, daughters and sons-in-law, and grandchildren, saying the kind and understanding word, offering help when needed and knowing when to be silent. When she was 74, she suffered a stroke that left her diminished for the last three years of her life. Throughout it all, she always tried to be faithful to God and her family, loving all those around her, even when towards the end all she could offer was a smile. At her funeral, so many people said of her the most important thing one can say, “She was such a loving woman.”
Kevin
I doubt Crystal’s mom ever thought about becoming a saint, but I believe that she is one. She was what I would call a “joy spreader”. The Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that so many of our human efforts to seek comfort and pleasure are “vanity and a chasing after the wind.” We have a higher calling. We all need to recognize our call to holiness and rather than deeming ourselves unworthy, fortify ourselves with the armor of prayer and the conviction that we are called to be “joy spreaders”. We need to look at the obstacles that we face in our lives and see them for what they are…..opportunities. There are certainly enough moments of frustration, enough suffering, and enough hardship that we all can endure with grace that will one day entitle us to belong to the sacred company of the saints. We have opportunities to evangelize in our homes as well as in the workforce. We have opportunities to share love with the least among us, allowing us to serve Christ in the hidden form of others. Any parent will experience countless opportunities to serve our sons and daughters, often with the added “opportunity” of being unappreciated. The gift that we have as married couples is that we have a spouse who is committed to be at our side throughout life and help us become the holy man or woman that God created us to be.
What can married couples do to help our spouse achieve sainthood? As it turns out, quite a bit! Each of us should be working on improving ourselves, while seeking opportunities to help our spouse become a holy person. For example, anytime that we have an opportunity to encourage our spouse to behave in a more loving way, without nagging, we should jump on it. Perhaps this might be a gentle nudge to forgive someone who has hurt them, or to spend a little more time with a child who is in trouble. Sometimes we might need to challenge our spouses by helping them see a situation from a different perspective. Even if we have to tell them something they do not want to hear, out of love we are called to speak the truth, but always with kindness and humility. (I heard once that holiness is not a competitive sport…. We don’t want to be attempting to perfect our spouse in such a way that implies we have all the answers. This is a big danger for all those who are earnestly striving for perfection themselves.)
I suppose the bottom line is that if our vocation is making us kinder, more patient, more giving, and more loving, we can assume we are on the right path. Of course, we have to always remember that at the end of the day, all of this is possible only by relying on the grace of God (and the intercession of the saints) to help us achieve the virtues we seek to emulate.
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