We Are Not Born Into Sainthood

We Are Not Born Into Sainthood                          

Eileen Renders                                                           

   Many of us have a special Saint that we may have prayed to, and we honor him or her because of the documented life they lived. As Catholics, our self-chosen Confirmation name must be selected from one of the Saints’ names. We understand that a Saint is an individual, man or woman, who has demonstrated a holy, selfless life. After documentation after one’s death, the process of Canonization may begin to declare a particular individual as a Saint. 

   We are all called to be holy, to live a life that imitates what Jesus taught us through His life and teachings. In other words, Saints are ordinary people like us, born with original sin, but focus on God and choose to devote their lives to God. Because of their love of Christ and the time they give to prayer, meditation, the sacraments, and serving God, they are blessed with many graces for their service to God.

   Many of us make the decision early in life to marry and raise a family, and this choice in life requires working and earning a sufficient income to support a family. This decision, therefore, becomes a priority in how our time is spent, Others at a young age, and are immediately drawn to a life of holiness with God as their focus. Thus, they are more likely to grow deeper in their faith and in their relationship with God sooner than their contemporaries who may have chosen the sacrament of Matrimony.  

   This is not to infer that a couple raising their children to be God-fearing and loving while working to feed and clothe them cannot live a holy life. Evolving into Sainthood, however, requires love, mercy, compassion, humility, much prayer and meditation, a type of sacrifice that is seen as selflessness, frequenting the sacraments, and living only to know Christ and submit to His will.

   While not all of us are destined to become a Saint, we are all called to be holy. Each one of us, regardless of our choices in life, can live a life dedicated to Christ. When we give our best at work on the job, as a Nurse, or Doctor, a Chemist, Grocery Store Clerk, or at home cooking a family meal, when we do all that is required of us in the best way that we know how to, we are serving God.

   God sees each of us as we live and how we live from day to day. When God is pleased with our sharing of our time, talents, and love, He will reward us with graces that help us along the way to continue our good works. Also, when we are confronted with a disability that limits our life as we once knew it, or besieged with pain surrounding a medical diagnosis, God will let us know that He is with us by showering us with acceptance, tolerance, and understanding. No one of us singularly, or as a group can ever outdo God when it comes to loving, giving, and mercy.

   Life, of course, is terminal for all of us. Keeping in mind that any material success we might achieve in life is not how we will be judged, nor will it travel with us into the next life, allows us to work each day as though it were our last, in that we seek to find a deeper meaning in life, one that is most pleasing to God. Our motives may be a bit self-satisfying as we are hoping that by our life god will have mercy and lift us on our last day to spend eternity with Him in heaven.