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Called By Baptism to Be Saints |
(John 1:29-34) |
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St.
Paul tells us in his Epistle that we are called to be a holy people.
In other words, we are called to be saints. You might ask, isn't it a
bit silly or ambitious or pretentious or proud? Aren't saints very
special people, a minority, an upper class? What does sanctity have to
do with ordinary people like you and me? |
Well,
sanctity has everything to do with us. Sanctity is our Christian
calling, simply because to be a saint, to be holy, is basically to be
one with God. It means to live the two great commandments of the gospel
and the law. Love God more than anything else. Love your brothers and
sisters, at least as much as you love yourself. Do that, and you are a
saint. Perhaps not heroic holiness, but essential sanctity. |
The
marvel of it is the power to do this. You already have the capacity to
be saints. God lives in you. His life courses through you already,
like another blood stream. The Lord has told us if we love Him, He and
the Father and the Spirit will come dwell with us... Father, Son and
Holy Spirit at home in you. You are one with God. This is what makes
you different, transforms you, gives you a fresh vision of what the
human can be. The point is you not only can be holy. If God is in you,
then you are holy. You are a saint.
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You
may not like the term, but you had better get used to it. It is another
word for Christian. What does this holiness, this being a saint demand
of you? The first letter of John puts it succinctly. "By this, we know
that we are in Jesus that those who say they abide in Jesus ought to
walk the way he walked." There is the Christian vocation to
greatness—simple and awesome. |
To
live holy lives, all you have to do is to live like Jesus. I don't mean
you have to imitate the raw details of His life... come to life in a
feeding trough, have no place to lay your head, be betrayed by your best
friend, then die on a cross. |
What
you must mirror, at all costs, is His love. But you can't do that if
you cut corners. If you are content with the minimum. If you just avoid
serious sin. If you ask "how much do I have to do?" You must love your
oneness with Christ and His human images, those around you. To be
holy, to be saints, there is no way you and I may live Christianity
part-time, with half our hearts in it. You don't always have to be
thinking of Jesus, but you have to try and think like Him, reproducing
not what He did, but the love with which He did it. I do not know what
particular road God wants you to follow. The way of Mother Teresa,
Francis of Assisi, ordained priest? These may not be for you. No
matter. Lawyer, doctor, mother, father, student, teacher, plumber, bus
driver, executive or store clerk, healthy or infirm. Whatever you are,
you are called to live as Jesus lived.
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Your
call was born at baptism. Your mission is to preach and live the gospel
in your part of the world, and you change the little part of the world
you touch, even if it's just one man, one woman, one child. You will do
that by being who you are and by being Christ-like. Because of you,
someone will be less lonely, sense that someone cares, will feel needed
and wanted, will feel Christ's love.
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You
don't have to do all that through natural gifts, nor with vast
knowledge or super-strength, but by the startling principle of St. Paul.
When I am weak, then I am strong. The unique feature of being a
Christian is that your strength lies in your weakness. If you let the
Lord take hold of you, to work in you, or as He said to St. Paul, "My
grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
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The
secrets is to let Christ in, let Him take hold of you. As an old
priest told me many years ago, turn your life over to God, at least
then, an idiot won't be running it.
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Back in the 5th
century, a splendid pope and preacher, Leo the Great, said in a
Christmas sermon, "Christian, recognize your dignity." We could echo
that call today. Recognize your dignity. God became what you are that
you might become what He is... a God Man died for you that you might
live for God and man. God lives in you, that you might live in Him.
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Recognize
that dignity, and you will recognize your calling. Simply be what you
are: saints. Live like saints. Christ bearers. Act like Christ bearers.
All of us are called to greatness. Then let us dare to be great. For
Christ's sake.
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Yours in Christ, |
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Fr. Robert Warren, S.A. |
Spiritual Director |
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