My generation (the millennials) has been brought up with the idea that you can do whatever you want in life, as long as you put all your heart and all your efforts to achieve it. Do you want to be a soccer star? or president of your country? or eradicate poverty? go ahead, you can do it! follow your passion, you will succeed! I can't even tell you how many disappointments this idea has led to.
In the Church, we are in danger of conveying a similar message. "If you want to, you can become a saint. It depends on you, on your efforts and decisions, on the virtues you forge. You put your will and you will see.
I do not deny that to be a saint requires effort, will and virtues. In fact, they are indispensable. But when the path to holiness is transmitted in this way, it is easy to fall into errors such as individualism, meritocracy and voluntarism. "If I do not achieve what I set out to do, it is my fault, because at the end of the day my destiny is in my hands. My happiness and success depend on me, my decisions and my efforts.
These convictions can do a lot of harm, because sooner or later one is confronted with failures, limitations and sins. And if one does not have the right attitude, this hurts intimacy and self-esteem, which easily leads to mediocrity based on hopelessness.
You cannot become a saint. But here comes the most incredible truth of your life: God can. And He wants to. He desires with all his heart that you be holy. And he knows you better than you know yourself. He knows exactly what limitations you have and the baggage you carry from your sins and those of your ancestors. And all this presents no problem to God. Because holiness is not so much what I do, but what I let God do in my life. Holiness is letting God love you unconditionally.
This truth has a radical implication: God can make all people holy. Even those who feel weak, wounded and dirty. Precisely them. When one discovers one's own inadequacy, one can say with St. Therese of the Child Jesus: "God cannot inspire unrealizable desires; therefore, despite my littleness, I can aspire to holiness."
I believe that the greatest sickness in society is individualism. Holiness is just the opposite, since it is essentially relational, as is the nature of man. I cannot advance one step in holiness and, therefore, I cannot give a drop of love to my neighbor, if not from the unconditional love of God. As he said Josef Pieper: "He who is not loved cannot even love himself." A saint is in love with his life because God is in love with his life. He embraces God's embrace, because he has gradually learned not to resist that divine embrace and to allow himself to be transformed by it.
This transformation does not go unnoticed, precisely because it touches everything that man is not capable of doing by himself. The most beautiful example of this is the Magnificat of the Virgin. When Mary enters the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth, the presence of Christ is felt and she can do nothing but praise God, "for the Almighty has done great things in me."
The lives of modern saints such as Carlo Acutis and Guadalupe Ortiz and other young people who died in the odor of sanctity, such as Clare Crockett, Pedro Ballester or Chiara Corbella, are modern versions of the Magnificat. They are stories of how Christ has gradually transformed the lives of ordinary, vulnerable, sinful people into songs of praise to God, each in a unique and special way.
I believe that in today's world there are three virtues that are of vital importance in helping people to allow themselves to be transformed by God: humility, hope and patience.
Through humility we are able to discover our deepest identity: that we are children of a Father who loves us unconditionally.
Hope is the firm conviction that God never abandons his plan of holiness with a person, no matter how great the mistakes and sins committed.
Through patience we do not lose joy and inner peace when we are confronted with setbacks, limitations and mistakes, knowing that the Holy Spirit is in our soul in a state of grace.
One of the most important messages of the Vatican Council II is that all men are called to holiness. Half a century later, much remains to be done to transmit this message so that people will believe it. Imagine if all the faithful were convinced that they really can be saints. It would be a real revolution; a magnificat that would illuminate the whole world.
Author of "Santidad para losers".
