The [Im]possibility of Sainthood

I’m not a saint by any means. I want to be a saint, to be holy and so joyfully close to Christ that my soul floats above hardship instead of wallowing in it.

Here’s the deal, though: I struggle with consistency and tend to roller coaster through spiritual fitness. I was a Totus Tuus missionary for the Lincoln Diocese back in the summer of ’06 and my team and I spent our whole days just immersed in prayer. We woke up, prayed a Rosary, said Morning Prayer before classes started, attended daily Mass with our students, ended our work days with Evening Prayer and a Chaplet of Divine Mercy, went to adoration at least once a week and made weekly confessions. In retrospect, I realize it was a taste of the religious life because I was wholly devoted to my work and prayer with little to no time for contact with “the outside world,” even my parents and then-boyfriend-now-husband Andrew. Because I was so focused, I was the most spiritually fit I’ve ever been – with all that prayer, Jesus, and sacramental grace, I felt FANTASTIC. 7 years + 1 husband + 3 little boys later, I don’t feel like my soul shimmers with the same sanctified bliss. In fact, flipping through my journal from my summer as a missionary is almost embarrassing because I feel so out of touch with God some days…most days?

I tend to do that – compare myself. And not just with people around me (a total chick thing to do) but with MYSELF from a previous time, which can be pretty discouraging knowing that I was capable of such holiness then but I’m nowhere near it now.

But there’s the flaw in my thinking; I was never capable of it in the first place. It’s easy for me to get down on myself for being lackluster in holiness because I think I can get it alone and the fact is that I haven’t. My problem is I want to be holy (with God) but achieve it on my own (without God), and it doesn’t work like that. It is God alone who sanctifies, who offers the graces to become holy. My job is to simply say YES each time I’m afforded a chance at it. Holiness is walking with God, staying with him even when the path is hazy, unclear, or dark.

When it comes to spirituality, I feel like St. Paul’s shadow boxer – taking jabs here and there without any sort of aim or direction. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know where to START, you know? Especially when I’m trying to return to regular prayer. Down here in the trenches with the rest of the Church Militant, it’s easy to lose hope that holiness, let a lone sainthood, is possible. Sainthood is what happens to people who have huge, miraculous conversions and blasts of intense, soulful reflection. I’ll be lucky to slip clandestinely into Purgatory and even then I think I’ll be settled in for a pretty long time.

Enter St. Therese.

The “littlest” of the saints, her words give me hope that, through very small steps toward Christ, I can be a saint:

“Alas! I have always noticed that when I compared myself to the saints, there is between them and me the same difference that exists between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and the obscure grain of sand trampled underfoot by passers-by. Instead of becoming discouraged, I said to myself: God cannot inspire unrealizable desires. I can, then, in spite of my littleness, aspire to holiness…” –The Story of a Soul

Holiness comes from God and it’s simply my job to say Yes. I don’t have to try to make myself holy. There is nothing for me but to trust Jesus. I’m glad.