How to Become a Saint, from Fr. Mateo, in the book "Jesus, King of Love."
Here below, the goal pointed out to you is sanctity. Your supreme and final goal is eternal life, which is the consummation of all sanctity.
Sanctity is possible for the simple reason that we are called and invited to it by God, therefore we can attain it.
Sanctity does not consist of laying hold of God in the heights of Heaven, but letting ourselves be seized by Him. He invites, He offers graces, light and strength, He draws and guides. He gives Himself. Our part is to love Him and give ourselves with docility, trust, and generosity.
It is your duty, on whom abundant graces have been bestowed, to become a saint. A duty is not impossible. It is a misconception that the saints were cast in a special mold, and this misconception disheartens souls who are both so aware of their own fallen state and of their call to sanctity.
Be very sure that saints had to struggle as much and more than we have. Constantly being faithful to divine grace, they (and we) can say with St. Paul, “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.”
If I truly wish to be a saint, I can be one; I can even be a great one. You must be thoroughly convinced that sanctity is within the reach of all generous souls. Sanctity is not the exclusive privilege of a particular class of souls.
Providence is insistently calling men and women of every class to a life of perfection, and bestowing upon them an abundance of graces. To be a saint is not to live in the strict enclosure of a monastery, to practice the austerity of Carmel, or the silence of the Trappists. It is possible to live in the world and be detached from all, mortified, full of burning charity, and to aspire to and attain the height of perfection.
Many wives and mothers tread the road of suffering just by living their daily lives. Many men drag out their lives at work, hampered by a thousand obligations and crushed under the weight of unavoidable responsibilities. Many of them are really leading heroic lives of an unseen martyrdom. Day by day they are living a generous and sacrificial life. All they need is a heart burning with charity, then God would raise up these crucified souls to Him.
We can and must sanctify ourselves in the normal, simple, beaten track of our daily lives.
We have but to take one decisive step to reach the threshold of the forge where heroes are fastened, and there - without changing vocation or dress, but by merely sanctifying the heroism imposed on us by our state in life, by supernaturalizing the martyrdom of our daily life - we could truly be saints.
Saints were not born saints. Sanctity must be and can be acquired. The supernatural beauty of a saintly soul is the work of grace together with the free, faithful, and heroic cooperation of the will.
Saints received at baptism the ordinary amount of grace bestowed on most Christians in that Sacrament, but by their extraordinary fidelity, ambition, and perseverance, they merited and drew down upon themselves an extraordinary flood of celestial favors and graces, which our Lord never refuses to souls of unlimited generosity.
Many saints received only the usual amount of grace necessary to work out their salvation. If they died rich in merits, these treasures of virtue were acquired. They did not spare themselves, and thus won an exceptional place in heaven.
All the saints had to sustain a relentless struggle. Like their Model and Master, Jesus Christ, they had to pass through the crucible of temptation, which humbles, fortifies and exalts.
Many beautiful souls are hampered in their progress by discouragement because they feel the weight of their frail and fallen nature. Lift up your hearts! Temptation is nothing but a crossroad on the journey. Have confidence, humility, peace and vigilance, and you will get over the crisis without any loss of virtue and with an enormous gain in merit.
Did not Francis of Assisi and Bernard of Clairvaux roll themselves in brambles in order to subdue their rebellious nature, or stand in a pond of icy water all night? Temptation is not a lack of virtue; on the contrary, by fighting it, the saints covered themselves in glory.
Our temptations are nothing against God. In His infinite wisdom and mercy, He allows them to try us as opportunities of meriting great glory.
It was only little by little, step by step, that the saints acquired their angelic nature. Acutely aware of their own frailty, they had to live a life of perpetual vigilance, always like a soldier on alert.
Grace, like nature, proceeds slowly, by steps wisely spaced. Sanctity increases in an ascending progression, like a ladder whose point of support is on this miserable earth, but whose upper part will one day touch heaven.
It is a mistake to think that the saints were extraordinary beings, that all of them lived apart from the simple, normal, trodden track, so that between us and them there scarcely exists even a distant relationship. It is a mistake to think that they belonged to a superior and select cast of which the ordinary Christian has no admittance.
God forbid we accept such a dangerous theory. We can and must sanctify ourselves in the normal, simple, beaten track of daily life.
God, in His wisdom, and without consulting us, has assigned to all a certain path. He has marked out our vocation, our way. This way is always the best for each of us. It is the only way where we can and must sanctify ourselves.
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