Saint Me

Posted by Annie

Whenever I discover a new song, I tend to listen to it on repeat for days on end.  (This may or may not drive Mike crazy!)  My newly discovered song obsession is called, “The Saint That Is Just Me” by Danielle Rose (http://daniellerose.com/lyrics/culture-of-life/.)  This song is a striking ballad that describes one’s desire to be like all the great saints.  It exalts their heroic qualities and sings of a yearning to live just like them.  Until the refrain brings it all home by exclaiming,

“When you hung upon the Cross looking at me, You didn't die so I would try to be somebody else, You died so I could be the saint that is just me.”

Wow.  Jesus, you don’t want me to be somebody else. 
You want me to be me.  You want me to be Saint Me.

 

The lives of the saints are beautiful, and thank God for them, because they point us on the road to Heaven.  We should try to emulate their saintliness, all the while remembering that we aren’t called to holiness in exactly the same way.  There already was a St. Gianna, so there doesn’t need to be another one.  St. Francis already lived, worked, and died serving the Church, so God doesn’t call any of us to be him either.  God doesn’t ask us to be saints precisely the way that others have been saints.  Instead, He gives us a particular mission and particular gifts necessary to fulfill that mission.  He places us in exactly our moment of history to build up His kingdom here and now.  It’s important (and slightly overwhelming) to realize that in the thousands of years that have gone by since the creation of man, and through the thousands that will pass until the end of time, there never has been and never will be another me.  So my focus shouldn’t be, “how can I be exactly like another saint?”  Rather, I must ask, “how does Jesus want ME to be a saint.”

The desire to live a life just like the great saints certainly resonates with me since I’m always comparing myself to other people.  Reading the amazing and inspiring saint stories tugs at my heart, and I begin to hope and pray that I too can reach their level of sanctity.  I remember as a young girl being so inspired by the story of Mother Teresa that I told my mom I wanted to become a Missionary of Charity.  That night, as I ate a large bowl of ice cream, my mom gently reminded me that this would be a luxury I’d have to give up if I chose to live with the poorest of the poor!

In her autobiography, even St. Therese writes about this longing to be like all the saints, “Jesus, if I wanted to write all my desires, I would have to take your Book of Life, where the deeds of your saints are recorded: all these deeds I would like to accomplish for you.”  She expresses her desire to be all things for Christ because she is so madly in love with Him.  That love urges her to serve Him with reckless abandon in every possible way.  As she continues reflecting, however, she realizes that “O Jesus, my Love, at last I have found my vocation, my vocation is Love!... Yes, I have found my place in the Church, and it is you, O my God, who have given me this place... in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be Love!”  St. Therese realizes that she cannot practically, as a cloistered nun, perform all of the mighty deeds performed by other saints.  What she comes to realize is that her vocation is love.  In her small corner of the world, she resolves to live love.  She understands that this is the path of sainthood to which the Father has called her – do all things, even the most simple, with great love.

This call to be St. Me is much more personal than the call to sainthood in general.  If I imagine, as the song suggests, Christ hanging on the cross looking right at me.  If I imagine Him saying, “Annie, here I am, dying for you.  Follow me.  Be my saint.”  Suddenly the call to sainthood becomes more tangible, more real.  Somehow it also becomes more demanding.  We can easily write off living like the great saints, saying we don’t have the strength or faith to be like them.  But when we realize that we are called to sainthood by being exactly who we are, excuses immediately fall flat.  It can seem much more attractive to die a martyr than to be saintly in a cubicle day after day (perhaps some days we'd prefer to burn at the stake!)  But it is right in the mundane, in our daily work, that God is calling us to sainthood.

God probably isn’t asking me to be a patron saint of music or of extreme poverty or of athletes.  He is first and foremost calling me to be Saint Wife and Saint Mother.  If I can consistently cover these tasks in His love, then I can also work to be Saint Youth Minister.  I can bring the love that overflows from my Vocation to marriage into my vocation of working with and speaking to the youth that He loves so dearly.  Then, perhaps then, with the intercession of the many saints who have gone before, I can become Saint Me.  May we always beg God for the grace to be exactly the saint He calls us to be.