Entertain Hope
Saints are everywhere:
Very often we find holiness in our next-door neighbours (Rejoice and Exult, 7, 2018).
Pope Francis is making an important point:
I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God’s people in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile.
We are all called to be saints, but the official, canonised ones, might sow seeds of doubt in our hearts:
Surely I can’t be like St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I love St. Francis of Assisi, but his poverty is too fierce for me.
But we are not called to be Mother Teresa or Francis. Remember Thomas Merton?
The reason people don’t become saints is because they refuse to be themselves (Seeds of Contemplation).
Be Christ. Be ourselves.
But how?
Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children, and that is what we are (1 John 3).
Purification is needed:
Surely everyone who entertains this hope must purify himself, must try to be as pure as Christ.
AMEN.
