Take the Medicine (All Saints Day)

All of us no matter how old or how young have a deep desire to be happy forever. It is a deep desire and longing that we have.

Today we celebrate the fact that there are people in Heaven who have already finished the earthly journey and made it to Heaven which is the only place that can satisfy the longing in our hearts. These people are the saints.

I don’t know about you, but when I think about “saints” I often think about people who are extremely holy and good.

The saints are the people who are holier, smarter, better, and kinder.

I think about Mother Theresa who spent most of her life in Calcutta caring for the poorest of the poor. How on earth can anyone be as selfless as her?

I think about St. Maximilian Kolbe who gave up his life so another man can live in a Nazi Concentration camp. How can someone give up their life like that?

Do you also feel that the saints are people who no one can relate with because their lives are too perfect?

I think deep down each of us want to be good people and live lives that are beautiful, but we recognize how hard this can be.

The saints are not people who are born “perfect". They are people like you and me who recognized their complete need for God’s help.

When we see someone like Mother Theresa or St. Maximilian Kolbe we are seeing the end product and we forget that these people had the same struggles that we do. They trusted that God would help them live beautiful lives.

Eleven years ago before I ever thought about being a priest, I heard a priest give a talk and he said “Did you know that all of you can be saints?”

I remember thinking to myself “There is no way you don’t know my past.”

At the time, I had no idea that saints were normal people who had the same struggles, but trusted in God’s radical mercy and love.

The saints struggled with anxiety, worry, fear, addiction, suffering and more.

The difference is that they relied on Jesus’ help.

The saints were transformed by God’s love and our lives can be transformed as well when we say yes to God

In each generation, God raises up saints to show us that it is possible to live beautiful and good lives.

I heard a Catholic author and speaker say that often times people will say “How can the Catholic Church be true when there are bad people in the Church?”

This author said rather than see the bad people in the Church see all the good people that the Church has produced over the centuries.

God knows how weak we are and how far we can fall, so God is offering us medicine to help us in our weakness.

The saints are the people that took the medicine of God. They said yes to this medicine.

The medicine is prayer and all the sacraments (mass, confession, the eucharist, baptism etc). When we make use of this medicine we are able to live beautiful lives like the saints.

To be a saint is to fulfill our destiny and purpose which is to be children of God. To be a saint is to be happy.

Some of you know and have a special saint that you pray too. There are many saints because God wants to give us many different examples to imitate.

I encourage you to learn more about the saints. Find a person that inspires you because that saint can help you become a saint as well.

One of my favorite saints is St. Therese of Lisieux because she is so simple. She was not specifically known to have done “great” things. She simply loved God in her day to day life and she changed the world through the beauty of her life.

Find a saint that can inspire you and be the saint that God has called you to be.