Holiness for All!

When I was a deacon, I was assigned to a certain parish in Baltimore as my pastoral assignment. When I arrived there, the permanent deacon who was assigned there took me out to lunch. Towards the end of lunch, he urged me to order dessert. I declined, joking that “I have two goals in life: to be a saint, and to be a thin priest – and I don’t know which one will be more difficult!”

            His reaction shocked me as he grew angry and his countenance darkened. “How arrogant of you!” he exclaimed. “You think that you can become a saint?”

            I was flabbergasted. “But doesn’t the Second Vatican Council teach us that we are all called to holiness?” I objected.

            He muttered a grudging agreement, but the rest of our meal was filled with tension.

            Recently the Australian Catholic apologist Matthew Kelly wrote a fantastic book called “The Biggest Lie in the History of Christianity”. According to him, the biggest lie is that we can’t be holy; that we’re not “saint material”. I hear that all the time, when Catholic joke about, “Oh, I hope to make it to Purgatory by the skin of my teeth.”

            Why not go all the way and seek to be a great saint? Why settle for mediocrity? We’d like to think the saints had some sort of mystical supernatural gifts – and sometimes some hagiographies (biographies of the saints) seem to put sanctity out-of-reach. For example, I remember reading that St. Catherine of Siena, as an infant, would fast on Wednesdays and Fridays by refusing to nurse at her mother’s breast (really? I find that hard to believe!). Or St. John Vianney, who used to fast on nothing but a single rotten potato per day and scourge himself using a whip until he bled (I definitely struggle keeping up with those acts of penance!). St. Rose Philipine Duschene used to pray for several hours each day (a heroic feat!). If this is what holiness consists in, then pretty much all of us will end up as spiritual runts, just because we like to surf the Internet and play sports and eat bratwurst.

            But what if holiness is something different? What if we didn’t have to imitate the saints’ extreme penances or prayer routine? I believe that you can be a saint just by living your life, and living your life for God (not necessarily living the life of the saint you most admire!).

            Matthew Kelly gives a great definition of holiness: holiness is becoming the best version of yourself. The best version of yourself! Holiness is you in your everyday life – as a mother, father, husband, wife, single person, high school student, retiree – with your specific gifts and talents (a passion for music, love for sports, great job working in business, sense of humor) – all given over to God. If you are married, seek to be the best husband or wife the world has ever seen. If you play soccer, do it all for the glory of God. If you have a good job, work at it with your whole being – not just for a paycheck but to truly better yourself and society. If we watch TV in recreation, we can make sure our shows lift us up and do not become a source of temptation. We strive to constantly overcome our sins and live a life of virtue. In all these things, cover it with prayer so that it may be God’s life in you.

            As Mother Teresa said, “Holiness is not the luxury of the few, but the simple duty of you and I.” How true that is! All of us are called to holiness in our everyday lives. We don’t need to imitate the external penances and prayers of the saints. Rather, we need to become our own saints by allowing God to be the King of every aspect of our life.