A Saint for us all

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saint's Day - one of our Holy Days of Obligation, which means it holds such a special place on our Church calendar that the faithful mark the day by coming together to celebrate the Holy Mass and receive the Eucharist! It's kinda a big deal - outside of our weekly Sunday obligation, we only have 6 other Holy Days out of the entire year!

So what's the big deal? Well, All Saint's Day is the day that we honor ALL the saints in heaven - both those known and unknown...wait, we have unknown saints? Huh?? Its true! We fully acknowledge that our fallible human selves will only ever acknowledge here on earth a mere fraction of the holy men and women who lived their lives with heroic virtue or whose lives were ended in a true martyr's sacrifice - but that does not stop them from being saints! See, when the Pope canonizes someone, he is not making them a Saint, they already were one. He is simply acknowledging for the entire world what God had already done in and through that person.

Also, as we must be perfect to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, all souls currently in heaven are saints as well. True, the vast majority of those souls became purified AFTER death - through time in purgatory - but once they enter Heaven, they are no less saints! Which means that we, too, can become saints - and in fact, we are called to sainthood right now! God created each of us to be saints - that is what He desires for each of His children, because to be a saint means to live a life fully in the love of God, seeking justice, demonstrating virtue, and loving unconditionally all of humanity. It means to live a life of holiness - which is what we hear ourselves called to in 1 Peter1:16, "Be holy because I am holy".

Now, I don't know about you, but to me, most of the time, that seems like a pretty daunting task. I look at the Saints and think, "Wow, that's amazing - they lived this extraordinary existence and look what they did! But I could never do that. Not in today's world. Not in my life." But the truth is that is a cop-out on my part, because while it is definitely true that some of the Saints lived and did extraordinary things in their lives, many of them simply lived as Christ called them to live - in faith, in love, and in joy.

Today at Mass, Fr. Nagel spoke about the life of Blessed Pier Georgio, who is a great example of this fact. To our knowledge, Pier Georgio never performed a miracle, never levitated, never had a vision of Jesus or Mary - but what he did do was love and live fully in Christ. He dedicated his free time to serving the poor through St. Vincent De Paul, he attended Mass at every opportunity and never let anything, even school work, keep him from the Eucharist. He spoke openly about his faith, and surrounded himself with faith-filled friends. He was going to be a mining engineer because he hoped to be able to positively affect the lives of the miners through this work. He was unselfish, unassuming, and unashamed of his love for God. And he let that resonate in everything he did.

Now, as I read over that, there is nothing there that I can rationally say that I cannot do - I can serve the poor, I can go to Mass and make it a first priority, I can speak openly about my faith, I can surround myself with faith-filled people, and I can work in a way that positively affects those I am working for.

So what excuse do I have for not being a saint? Well, the truth is none. What limits me from being a saint is not the world, or my life, or any other external factor. What limits me from being a saint is, well, me.

Everyday, we are faced with many opportunities to choose holiness, to strive for sainthood - and the fact is that when we don't chose that option, the only person we can point the finger at is ourselves. Sure, we are really good (I am pretty much an expert at this...) at rationalizing the reasons why we fall short - its too hard, people will look at me weird or may get angry or upset, my views are not the world's views, my friends won't understand, I will miss out on all the "fun"...and the list could go on and on. But while it is tempting and easy to lay the blame elsewhere, the fact is that we are simply fooling ourselves. If we could just find a way to trust in God and His plan, our lives would be so much better!

Look at Pier Georgio - he surrendered his life fully to God, and lived that life to the full! He was known for being the glue that held his social group together because he was so much fun! He loved to go out to the mountains with his friends, to hike, to rock climb, and to scale the highest peaks he could find! He went out at night and hung out with his friends. He fell in love with a beautiful Spanish girl named Laura. He lived. He did not miss out on anything - in fact, I would say he had more than most of us could ever imagine!

So on this All Saint's Day, let us ask Blessed Pier to intercede for us with our heavenly Father so that we are all graced with the courage, wisdom, and faithfulness to strive for holiness and sainthood by living life to the fullest by living it in Him.