It’s quite a blessing that we can both read about canonized saints (or even blesseds, venerables, and so on) or read their own words.
If we find ourselves reading or listening to the Gospels and learning about Jesus’ words and actions and saying to ourselves “I’m not the Son of God. I can’t do that.” (which, honestly, is always a good thing to say no matter what the circumstances). We can look to the saints as examples of people who were not God but somehow got it right anyway.
There is a wrong way
Before I continue, there’s a pet peeve I need to rant about.
Maybe some of you will agree with me or maybe some of you can enlighten me to the opposite, but there is a wrong way to appreciate the lives of the saints.
Not to pick on them, but I’m going to use the examples of St. Augustine and St. Mary Magdalene.
Over the years, whether personally or anecdotally, I’ve seen people cite those two saints as examples of how to get to Heaven, but not so much for their virtue, but for their failings.
I’ll hear and see things such as “Mary Magdalene did X and she still got to Heaven.”
True, but . . .
“Augustine did this and he still got to Heaven.”
Yes, but . . .
Focusing on their sins, shortcomings, and failings is missing the whole story completely.
Their sins, whatever they were and however serious they were, were NOT how they got to Heaven. There is more to the story.
Much like many will ignore the “go and sin no more” part about Jesus forgiving the woman adultness, some tend to ignore the lives of holiness these saints led following a massive conversion.
Their prayer, devotion to the Lord, and I can only guess chastity, humility, and service are why they became saints.
Look beyond their sins when looking at them as examples.
Look beyond your own sins and what you can become when you ponder the possibility of your own sainthood, canonized or otherwise.
Learning from the saints
I’ve always been drawn to St. Faustina not only for the devotion to Divine Mercy but because when she wrote, you could tell she was troubled and had a lot on her mind.
She gives me hope that if God can help someone like her and make her a great saint, he can make me a great saint through all my clumsiness, overthinking, and unorganized writings (present words excluded, of course.)
I’ve recently started reading the writings of St. Teresa of Avila. She’s another example of someone who put on paper just about everything she was thinking in her head, but what gems those words were.
The causes are still ongoing for Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and Venerable Fr. Patrick Peyton, but I’ve read their books too, and see them as examples, though flawed and imperfect, of how God was able to use them and the miracles of modern communications to bring more people to Him.
While I’m not St. Faustina, St. Theresa, Bishop Sheen, or Father Peyton, I am like them in that I, somehow, always come back to the Lord in the midst of my mistakes.
What can we learn from them as well as from Augustine and Mary Magdalene? How to let God help us and guide us through our flaws, faults, and failings.
Yes, each and every one of the saints sinned, some massively, but that’s not what God loved about them, and what we should love about them.
We should love their repentance and their trust.
Let’s embrace the fact that there is hope for the sinful, ourselves and those around us.
The biggest takeaway from all of the lives of the saints is they loved God and let Him decide how best to get His work done on Earth through them, amid their weaknesses.
We can be saints
Let’s start now. Let’s get out of our own way and become saints.
Who are some of the saints that you are drawn to?
Have any of their life stories given you hope or helped you turn things around in your own life?
Have you read about any of them and thought “Golly, they’re just like me!”?
We have the gifts of being able to read about them and also pray through them.
If there’s a saint you want to learn more about or have always felt drawn to, talk to them. Have them pray for you as if you’d ask a friend to.
I usually always carry on me a prayer card of St. Faustina with a third-class relic in it.
No, the card never responds to me or says anything (although the occasional eye-roll wouldn’t be surprising), but it’s nice to know she’s there.
It’s nice to know that she was sometimes disliked by other Sisters in her Order while living out her vocation, but yet God was with her doing great things with her that would carry on long after her death, which will be 85 years ago this October.
It’s good to know that being accepted by others is not a prerequisite to getting to Heaven.
What we do for good, whether noticed or not, is worth more than attention.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.