I find myself thinking about what makes a Saint a Saint. While the Church has an official process for canonization, my naïve perception of what constitutes a Saint would start with certain characteristics: virtue, holiness, kindness, and patience. These are not so different from qualities which Jesus encourages in today’s Gospel. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out a set of guidelines for living. The Beatitudes give guidance encouraging a clean heart, righteousness, mercy, and an agency for peace. They also offer some counterintuitive direction (poverty of spirit and meekness).

When I set out to get an idea across, I make sure it is highlighted in both the beginning and end of my presentation. I would like to think that this is the case in the Beatitudes. I understand poverty of spirit to mean placing one’s trust in God rather than the things of this world. I interpret the second to the last Beatitude to be a call to discernment of and faithfulness to God’s will as contrasted to earthly honors and wealth. I think that it may be the final Beatitude which may best express my understanding of Sainthood. I see persistence and grit with respect to the mission as defining factor.

I see this factor is also found in today’s first reading. The passage from the Book of Revelation concludes as identifying the elect as “the ones who have survived the time of great distress”, which I understand to be those who would be the Saints to the author of Revelations. If I imagine myself in the place and time of this author, my feeling is that the Saints would be the faithful who did not yield to the Roman persecutions.

I find that this persistence and grit in identifying and following God’s will seems to be a trait common to the Saints across the ages. Although it takes very different forms, I can see this in the early martyrs, Saints like Theresa of Avila, and Saints like Mother Theresa.

I am reminded of the distinction between Saints and saints, which we were taught by the nuns in elementary school. I think of the small but nevertheless heroic acts of my parents and my deceased oldest sister. They clearly deserve to be known as saints. Although their lives did not consist of what would be called acts on the grand scale (martyrdom or acts of service that become widely recognized), their more subtle embracing of God’s will in everyday life gives me confidence that they too have been granted sainthood.

My prayer today is for perseverance in hearing and following God’s call.

Dear Lord,
I am consoled by the thought that many of the Saints had a less than perfect past.
Forgive me and heal me for my shortcomings and bad choices.
Open my heart and mind to Your direction.
Allow me to follow the models of Your Saints and Your saints.