There is a universal call to holiness: each of us is called to be a saint.
But I think sometimes we forget that while this call is universal, it’s also personal. We can easily get an image of God looking down from his heavenly throne, calling down to us like Oprah giving everyone a new car: “You get a call to sainthood! You get a call to sainthood! Everybody gets a call to sainthood!”
While we should recognize the universality of our call to holiness, we should also see the individuality of our call. God doesn’t want cookie-cutter saints. If He did, He would’ve made that happen. But when we look at the Saints of our Church, we are met with rich diversity. Saints who were priests, sisters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, teachers, students, writers, artists… The list goes on and on. When we forget that God’s call for us is personal, particular, and unique, we forget that our response must also be personal, particular, and unique.
Who Are You Calling Me to Be?
While there are certain things we are obligated to do as Catholics (for example, following the Precepts of the Church and adhering to the Ten Commandments), our individual responses to God’s call to holiness are going to look very different from each other. God created each of us individually, intentionally, and carefully. When He knit you in your mother’s womb, it was with a vision of you as a saint.
God created each of us for a specific mission in this world. He is looking each of us directly in the eyes and saying, “My child, I love you. I see your heart. I know your talents and your passions. I want you on my team, sharing those gifts with the world for my kingdom. I want you with me in heaven. I want you to be a saint.”
As we enter into this new year, ask Him: “What kind of saint are you asking me to be?” Make an active plan for your sainthood. Dream with God about the person He desires you to be.
And then be that person.
Running to Win
God’s call for you is deeply personal, so I can’t sit here and tell you what your path to sainthood will look like. I can’t tell you what virtues God is asking you to cultivate right now, what He wants you to invest your time in, or the kind of prayer life He is inviting you to develop. That’s up to you to consider and plan with the Lord. But here are some general tips that have helped me as I have dreamt with the Lord:
1. Examine your life. Often times, you don’t have to look far to see what God is calling you to work on. Consider the roles that you fill—parent, child, student, teacher, leader—and ask God how you can be a more loving version of that person. Perhaps you need to cultivate more humility so that you can be a better servant leader. Or maybe you need to learn to say no and stop stretching yourself so thin so that you can give more time and attention to your parents, spouse, or children.
2. Be prompt. If you’re like me, your life sometimes ends up looking like this: I ask God to give me the grace to do whatever thing I think He is calling me to… and then I sit around, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for grace to fall out of the sky and into my lap so that I can do it. But the reality is that we should ask God to give the grace to do what He calls us to and then do it, trusting in His Providence and relying on His strength. We don’t become saints by sitting around. We become saints by being saints.
3. Be both gentle and stern. There will be times that we fall. There will be times when we don’t do things as we ought or we feel like we should be better. We need to learn to face these moments, being both gentle and stern—gentle enough to not be our own biggest critic, but stern enough to keep ourselves from complacency. St. Francis de Sales says that when we find that we have fallen, we should speak to ourselves in this way: “Alas, my poor heart, here we are, fallen into the pit we were so firmly resolved to avoid! Well, we must get up again and leave it forever. We must call on God’s mercy and hope that it will be steadier in the days to come. Let us start out again on the way of humility. Let us be of good heart and from this day be more on guard. God will help us; we will do better” (Introduction to the Devout Life, III.9).
4. Be open to redirection. Sometimes what seems to be most pressing to us isn’t actually what God is trying to call us to. With an attentiveness to prayer, our eyes will continually be opened to who it is that God is asking us to be. Keep in mind that what you need right now in this season may be different than what you need in another season. If and when you’re redirected, don’t think that you have wasted your time! God can use every season and every honest work offered up for His glory.
5. Be disciplined. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul says, “Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one” (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). My friends, there will surely be days when doing what God is asking of us just doesn’t seem worth it or doesn’t seem within our reach. But as runners training for a marathon, we are working for our sainthood. Be committed even when it’s hard. Run so as to win.
Sweet friend, God wants you to be a saint. So, what are you doing about it?
From my heart to yours,
Resources:
- To examine your conscience:
- Introduction to the Devout Life by Saint Francis de Sales
- Abiding Together Season 6, Episode 1: A Call to Holiness
- Abiding Together Season 6, Episode 3: I Choose You
