What Do I Gotta Do to Become a Saint?
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Two days ago, we thought about the worst suffering in Purgatory – the pain of loss.
The pain of knowing that we could have been with God right now and we could have helped our children, our friends and strangers into heaven and it wouldn’t have taken much – but we didn’t do it!
This thought cut me to my heart because I don’t want to be a self-absorbed coward. I want to leave it all on the field so to speak and do all I can to be united with God and help my family, friends and strangers to union with God and perfect happiness.
Man - I don’t want to waste any opportunity to help them and certainly not waste it on some small stupid selfish pursuit. So what do we need to do?
We can possess God and do the greatest good for everyone around us if God lives in us and we let Him live through us. And this is precisely what it means to be a saint.
Holiness is a) to share in God’s divine life as His son or daughter; and b) it is to behave like God – to be virtuous, to live a godly life.
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We can’t become a Saint by our effort alone.
Jesus must give and continuously give his divine life to us.
Jesus gives his life to us in Baptism. That is when we die to original sin and are reborn as a son or daughter of God – we actually become human and divine.
Jesus gives His life continuously to us in the Eucharist at daily Mass.
If we reject His life through mortal sin or weaken it by venial sin, then Jesus forgives, restores and heals us with his divine life in Reconciliation.
Confirmation is the sacrament which strengthens our resolve to live a heroic life for Christ. So it’s the sacrament meant to build up the virtue of fortitude.
And when we are tempted to despair in suffering – Jesus strengthens us with his life in the sacrament of Anointing.
Holy Orders is the sacrament that makes Christ present so that He may give his life to us in all the other sacraments and to instill our Church leaders with the prudence they need not only to lead their own lives, but to lead the Church.
Marriage is the sacrament which channels and sanctifies one of the strongest urges we have, the urge for physical, personal, and creative love. It therefore grants us a grace of temperance, which is the virtue that properly directs and controls our strongest desires to put them at the service of life and love.
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Jesus wants to give His divine life to you through the Sacraments to make you divine like Him!
There is no issue from his side of the deal. The problem arises from our side. Will we open and receive His life? And how well will we receive it? 10%; 50, 100%? What is our rate of absorption?
This is where the mission of the Holy Spirit and Mary come in.
In the Trinity the Father and Son give their life. The Spirit receives it. The Holy Spirit is the great receiver.
It’s the same on earth. The Father and Son give their divine life. The mission of the Holy Spirit is to receive the life of Jesus in and with and through Mary. This is plain to see when Jesus becomes man.
Well, Jesus will come and live in us in the same way. Jesus gives his life; the Holy Spirit and Mary receive His life in us and then they form Jesus within us.
So give yourself, consecrate yourself to Mary so the Spirit will receive and form Jesus in you.
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Daily meditation and a resolution are the way the Holy Spirit and Mary form us to be like Jesus.
In meditation we do three things:
A. We listen to God by reading or hearing His Word in Scripture, Tradition – the writings of the saints and the teaching of the Church. This is the way God speaks to us.
B. Then we reflect or think about what God has said and done to understand it, to love God for it and to form firm convictions.
C. We form a resolution to put into practice what God has said to us that day.
D. This is the way Mary gave the Rosary to St. Dominic and that is why we pray the Rosary this way because the Rosary is meant to be a meditation on the Word of God in the School of Mary
If you listen to God in silence, it will lead to good thoughts and good behaviors that result in peace.
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Live according to God’s design
God designed the human person to need seven good things:
We need God. We receive him by sacrament, prayer and love
But we also have physical and emotional needs – food, shelter, exercise, stability and variety, etc.
We need good relationships with family and friends
Achievement – our particular way of finding what we are good at and using it for the good of others. Our own way of doing good for the world.
We need knowledge and beauty. And we need to possess each of these in a way that suits our unique identity.
But to strive after and possess each of these good things in a balanced way, not only for ourselves but also those around us will take a lot of virtue.
Let’s take marriage and family for example: It will take prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope and love to really love and honor your spouse for 50, 60, 70 years…have and raise a bunch of kids to be virtuous humans, all those years of trying to build a profession so you can provide, all the days you thought would never end when your kids were little and had the flu and nobody got any sleep and you had to get up for work or do it again and again like ground hog day…
My point is this: All we have to do to become a saint is just live an ordinary life. Just live the way God designed you which will cause you to practice all the virtues necessary to live like God.
Jesus and Mary are always in you to help you.
Live in the present moment, don’t give up. You can do it!