Do You Want to Be a Saint?

How many times have you heard someone say, "I'm no saint?" Yet, that is what God created each and every one of us to be - not necessarily the canonized version (there are relatively few of those), but a person who has dedicated His or Her life to loving and serving God and neighbor. This doesn't mean that we never sin. We all sin. The greatest saints sinned. What it means is that when we do sin, we beg for forgiveness, and then get back up and try to do better.

Christine Watkins has written a powerful article for CatholicMom on The One Thing You Should Demand of God. She writes: There is one demand you must make of God, and you must mean it. Tell Him, with sincerity of heart and a forcefulness of purpose, “God, make me into a saint.” . . . .What is sainthood, in truth? Sainthood is allowing the divine spark of God to live in us so brightly that we become the fullness of who we were created to be.

In truth, this is an uncomfortable article to read, a reminder of our shortcomings, but it is a necessary reminder of where we need to put our focus. We all have things that hold us back from being the fully alive person that God created us to be. We all have sins and weaknesses that hold us back, but God can work with the mess. We are all works in progress. We need to keep striving for holiness.

Also, many of us fear giving our lives over to God because of the suffering that will come from that. Watkins writes: Any temporary suffering we incur by doing God’s will in this life is little to nothing compared with the suffering we will undergo in the next, if we thwart God’s will. The truth of the matter is, if we choose not to be a saint, we choose to suffer more and for the wrong reasons. If we think that being a saint means ultimately enduring more suffering, we have been fooled. Deciding to fall short of sainthood is deciding to hold onto sin, which only brings darkness and despair, benefiting only the devil and his minions.

So, do you want to be a saint? If not, do you have any idea what you are giving up?