Those who live a life in Christ may attain Salvation. We call them saints. The Church goes through a very thorough process to consider the sanctity of a deceased person. However we are all called to be saints since the Will of God is that we become holy, nothing defiled can enter heaven [Revelation 21:27], therefore "we must become saints."
We have a cloud of witnesses in our Church and we call them saints
because they lived their lives in accordance with the Gospel [Hebrews
12:1]. Some of them performed miracles.
They are intercessors for us before God. Our Lady is the greatest of all the saints.
The bodies of some of the saints remain incorrupt for hundreds of years after their deaths
as a sign from God [Acts 2:27].
Many of us are discouraged when called to a life of sanctity because it seems something impossible [Luke 5:8]. Were this impossible, the Lord would not call us to holiness, therefore it is our duty to respond to the call of God.
The soul is the mirror of the the light of God, He looks at a soul as anyone would look at his reflection on a mirror. When we sin we smudge the surface of our souls and we don't reflect the light of God any more. The soul is wounded by sin and it becomes like a leper, only the healing coming from God's forgiveness can restore it to health.
Sin separates us from God, just as a wall separates one side from another. Our sins create such a big wall that we can not get to God [Isaiah 59:2], and because it is made by us, God waits until we break it down with our repentance.
Our sins are darkness, God is Light. We can think of someone in an enclosed room, with all the windows and doors shut, with no crevices for the light to come through, in other words without any light whatsoever, and this is how we live when we are in our sins. The light of the Grace of God can not penetrate the world of darkness that our sins have created. It is then, until we personally open the windows of our souls with repentance and sorrow for having offended God, that His light will shine once more on us bringing peace, love and joy.
Sin is very ugly and by contrast God is so beautiful, that He can not bear the sight of sin, He is perfect and He can not tolerate imperfections, He is Love and He can not accept hatred.
All the opposites of Good stop us from having a perfect relationship with God, we must therefore destroy sin completely in our lives in order to live for God.
Have Mercy on me a sinner [Luke 18:10-14]
There were two men who came to the temple, one was justifying himself saying Lord thank you for making me a good man, I pay my taxes to the Church, I give alms, I study the Law of the prophets, I am really good, but that man on the corner is a publican, he truly is a sinner, I am happy that I am not like Him. In the mean time the other man was beating his breast saying: Lord have mercy on me, I am a sinner.
Jesus said that the second man went home justified because he accepted that He was a sinner. Someone called Jesus good and He rebuked Him saying there is only one who is Good, the Father in Heaven. Therefore, we are no good, and the more we think we are, the more evil we become because we allow pride to take the better of us.
We must understand that the only reason why Christ died for us is because His goodness makes up for the evil in us. We have offended God starting with Adam to the last man, and the offence is of infinite value because it is done not to something finite but to God who is Almighty and Infinite in all His perfections. So the offence had to be paid with coin of infinite value which is Christ Our Lord.
We have an infinite debt with Him, if we aspire to live eternally. How can we pay? God knows what we are made of and He only expects us to believe in Him, to believe in His Son and to accept His Salvation. He has called us to repent and to amend our lives, to love Him and to love our neighbour.
The just man sins seven times a day, so we must indeed sin many more times than him, we have to accept that we are sinners and we must shed tears of repentance for our sins.
To appreciate the Love of God for us, we must become familiar with the Passion, agony and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, our King. This way we will know Him more and this knowledge will grow into great love for God. At the same time we will understand the role of Mary in our Salvation, because it is through Mary that Jesus came into the world and we must realise the debt that we have to her, who is our Mother and Queen.
God is infinitely merciful [Psalm 103], but we must come to the Throne of Mercy to obtain pardon for our sins, we must truly feel sorry of having crucified Jesus on the cross and we must come to Him with humility, because without Him there is no Salvation.
He has set up his throne of Mercy in the confessional box, where He listens through the priest in order that we may humble ourselves. By confessing our sins to another man we are giving witness that Jesus is Our Saviour, and that He is still alive through the Sacraments of His Church. I will be with you until the end of times [Matthew 28:20].
The Sacrament of Reconciliation produces the fruit of peace in our souls and prepares us to be worthy to receive the Precious Body and Blood of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
The
Work of God
www.theworkofgod.org