We Celebrate the Saints and they pray for us:

We Celebrate the Saints and they pray for us:

Reading the Lives of the Saints and learning about their struggle to abide with God’s love by calling each to a life of faith in spite of worldly attractions should be a premise to all of us.  Pick your favorite saint that leaves your heart pounding to be in some little way a similar guide to follow, if probable, to please God.  

One factor we should learn is that none of them became a worldly character that received worldly honor while taking on the sufferings that go along with the absence of accolades given to stage actors.  God did not call each one to a life of pure respect from all who knew them by their energy of creativity which gained a popular position to follow.  If anything, a saint in the making was usually misunderstood and most certainly ignored by most who expected a popular mode of their actions.

“I want to be a Saint!”  Words that many young children might be saying if just for a moment in growing up and living in an environment where parents and close friends constantly give praise to God and promote the life of Christ on more occasions than Easter.  However, the words are not just a passing expression from their earlier adolescent years, but you can be assured that the Holy Spirit has already planted a seed and for some the seed begins growing without their being aware; “This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.  Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.”  “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it?  It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.  But when it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.?  (Mk 5: 26 - 28, 30 - 32).

This is exactly how the seed planted in the soul of some young people begins to grow and allows the Word of God to receive messages through life’s encounters that open the original seed planted deep in his soul and without warning the essence of our God who calls that grown-up child with a path he/she cannot avoid and a saint is born.

There might become periods of doubting the reasons why this silent call has come upon this future warrior of hope and faith aimed at someone else as a messenger of that need to exclaim the planted expressions of a God who cares and the one carrying the message is already finding the suffering because too many will not listen and accused the messenger of fantasy or as the Pharisees accused Christ of Blasphemy.  

Follow the path of so many saints before you as they may claim the very tortuous accusations of a religious screw-ball.   Yet these are some of the comments you may have to live with.  As I mentioned in the second paragraph, sainthood is not a task that everyone is looking for, and the very essence of this position isn't necessarily listed as a vocation;  It comes by way of God’s choice.  When God calls one to this life he has already placed his Son as an example to follow.

Ralph B. Hathaway