Solemnity of All Saints 2015

October 31 & November 1, 2015+ JMJ +

Solemnity of All Saints 2015

Become a Saint

What makes somebody a saint? The short answer: somebody who is in heaven. We have no idea how many people are in heaven, although we know at least several thousand are. These are the officially recognized Saints with a capital “S” whose lives and works left no doubt that they were perfectly purified of sin, by the power of Christ, when they died.

Ever since the 16th century, the Vatican has had the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to take a very systematic look at each candidate’s life. Ever since then, three verified miracles must be worked after the person had died through his or her help. Only God can work a miracle; therefore, if He allows a miracle to happen through the help of a person who has died, it means that person is in heaven with Him.

We know what makes somebody a saint. The real question today is “how do I become a saint?” How do I too get to heaven? We hear this question asked less frequently today than it was in the past. Our ancestors in the faith used to spend long amounts of time on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Rome, used to make long fasts from food, and used to dedicate great efforts to prayers and service because they wanted to become saints.

As St. John reminds us in the second reading, people in the world at large do not care about becoming saints. “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” I was thinking about movies, stories, and stereotypes that I have seen and heard, and I came up with three false steps to becoming a saint—three mistaken ideas about saints that we hear.

Step 1: have no fun. Be miserable. As the Billy Joel song says, “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints; the sinners are much more fun.” Being holy is boring.

Step 2: have no common sense. Walk around in a daze, speaking in a far-off voice. Even many well-meaning movies show saints totally detached from everyday life, living in a fog, with their eyes glazed over and with no concern for what happens in the world.

Step 3: have no sense of humor. Be serious all the time and never laugh.

If that were how to become a saint, making it through life would be nearly impossible, even with heaven waiting for us. Thanks be to God that the world has everything wrong. First, Saints have the most fun. As any recovering addict will tell you, there is such a thing as too much fun. Consequences catch up with us, and that is true for any sin. The Saints are people who learned to enjoy the things of this world in moderation. They brewed beer and drank wine, played musicand sports, acted in plays, climbed mountains, and watched television.

Second, saints have the most common sense. They make life work in the most difficult and hopeless situations. They built monasteries and convents in swamps and made the land fertile for farming, they fed the poor and starving when no government could, they built schools and orphanages, gave counseling and advice, and attended to the needs of everybody around them.

Third, saints have the best sense of humor. Once when St. Bernard was dedicating a new church, it was filled with flies, and all the monks were swatting them. He looked at the flies and declared “I hereby excommunicate all of you.” Everybody laughed with him, but they also found on the church floor the next day hundreds of dead flies. St. Thomas More, as he laid his head on the chopping block, moved his beard aside and told the executioner “My beard has done no wrong.” Pope St. John XXIII, when he was newly elected, heard one elderly lady say to her friend “He is fat!” He turned to her at once and said “But, Madam, you must know that the conclave is not exactly a beauty contest!”

How do I become a saint? Today’s Psalm 24 gives us the three true steps to become a saint: “One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean,who desires not what is vain.” Sinless hands: good deeds. Clean heart: balanced emotions. Desires not vain: worthy thoughts.

Step 1: do good. When looking at their lives, many people say “I haven’t killed anybody, stolen or lied.” That is good, of course, but only the first step to become a saint. The Ten Commandments deal mostly with this first step. So do the Precepts of the Church, which are to worship at Mass each weekend and Holy Day of Obligation, to fast and abstain from meat on the proper days in Lent, to make Confession and receive the Eucharist at least once and year, and to tithe our money or talents to support the Church’s mission.

Step 2: have peace or balance in your emotions. We all have different temperaments here, but outburst of anger, lust, envy, or greed, and regular feelings of arrogance or self-hate help nobody. These are called the Seven Deadly Sins because they imbalance us and lead us into sin. Jesus spoke of this step 2 in his sermon on the mount, encouraging us to put aside anger, lust, and jealousy. Acting contrary to our imbalanced feelings helps to bring them into balance. Find humor or even a blessing in that person who angers us. When we are depressed, find something for which we can give thanks. When greedy, give to charity, when lustful, do a self-less act of service, when proud, confess our sins.

Step 3: develop worthy thoughts. We may do no wrong deed. We may have our emotions in proper balance. Still, we can think only about ourselves or our own needs. We can obsess over things of this earth and neglect to prepare ourselves for heaven. We can fail to learn more about our faith or to pray each day. Our deepest hopes and dreams—our deepest thoughts—should be only what leads us to God and to heaven. If they are not, we are not yet saints.

The good news today is: we can be saints. We don’t need a certain amount of money, a special education, or even special talents. Baptism and Confirmation have given us all we need to begin, and the Sacraments of Confession, Eucharist, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick are always there to help us. The three steps I mentioned are the three stages of the spiritual life that Christians have known for centuries. These same three steps are what we follow to join God in heaven one day and become a saint.

Sinless hands: good deeds. Clean heart: balanced emotions. Desires not vain: worthy thoughts.

Rev. Eric Culler