Attainable Sanctity

Happy feast of All Saints day! I don't know why but today's feast seems more significant to me now than it ever has before. Growing up, All Saints day was three things:
     1) The day after Halloween where you eat as much candy as your mom lets you
     2) The day everyone at school dresses up as a Saint and you have a lame parade
     3) The beginning of the countdown to Thanksgiving.
And even though these are all good things, this year something is different. Oddly enough, I feel like today I get to celebrate all of my friends. You've now probably written me off as a crazy loner who has imaginary friends that are saints. Wrong. I just realized that today feels different because it is the first time in my life that my goal is to become a Saint. Sainthood never really seemed attainable to me, nor did it seem like anything that was possible or normal girls from Lincoln, Nebraska. It was such an abstract concept and they were just people I prayed to when I needed to win a volleyball game or when I lost my keys for the 25th time.

    When started learning more about them, I saw how each of them had a uniquely personal story of their encounter with God and how they heard His call in their lives. I started to notice their stories sounding more and more like my own. They came from towns big and small, all around the world, from good families and bad families and had every struggle you can name. But just like St. Jose Maria Escriva says, "A Saint is a sinner who keeps trying." That is what sets their lives apart from every other good man or woman who has ever lived. At some point, they let God take over. Be it at 14 or 74, they not only listened to his call...but they responded. Some did this in a radical way like giving up family wealth and going out into the desert. Others did it by small yes's everyday that one day changed a city in India.

    Maybe our call to sanctity doesn't mean giving up our lives to preach the gospel in foreign countries (if it does, by all means do that.) It might not mean entering a convent and living a cloistered life (again, if it does please do that.) But I think for most of us, the call to sanctity is waking up in the morning, asking God what He wants of us that day and doing it. Maybe that means He is asking you to be a missionary (I know of this pretty cool organization 😉). Or maybe it means offering up a small suffering for someone who needs it.

Whatever it may be, listen and respond. 

We serve an incredible God Who desperately wants to spend eternity in heaven with us. But eternity begins with your choices today. And one day may we be one of those "wearing white robes, holding palm branches in our hands," (Rev. 7:9) Maybe one day, November 1st will be our feast day too. 

All you holy men and women, Angels and saints of God....... pray for us.