Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast, where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Glory to you, O Lord.
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.
He began to teach them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
The process to be considered a saint in our church has changed dramatically over the centuries.
Currently, it is a very bureaucratic process with evidence gathered, miracles testified to, and all kinds of steps before someone is declared a saint.
But for centuries in the church, saints were proclaimed by popular acclamation.
The people who knew these individuals best recognized in them something that set them apart, a holiness, an example that they recognized was something that should be followed, something that should be emulated.
Well, I've gotten to a point in my life where I like the old ways better in virtually everything.
With that understanding, I think it's good to recognize what makes a person holy, because it's not what we oftentimes think.
It's not just that they are one step below God, that they did everything perfectly. They never got angry, they never had a crossword, they never made a mistake, they never were selfish.
In fact, in virtually every example of our saints, they were far from that.
They were very human in the same sense that you or I are human.
But the example that made them holy and that we strive for is that they recognized their frailties, they recognized their brokenness.
They recognized all of those things that kept them from the perfection that God called them to.
And in that, they trusted that the only way they could be made whole, the only way that they could be lifted up, was through the limitless mercy of God.
And they trusted in that limitless mercy so much that they allowed their lives to day by day and week by week, be transformed by it.
And that selfishness that was there began to fade away.
That anger dissipated.
Any of those flaws that they found in their character suddenly became less and less because they learned to depend on that presence of God. It was already a part of who they were, and the people recognized it. They could see in the way they lived out their lives that they testified to Christ's love without ever having to use words.
It happened by the way they lived.
Well, that same promise and hope is there for every one of us.
We can trust in that mercy. We can trust in that healing. We can trust in that love.
And most importantly, we can trust that all of those things can literally change what we're like, can wash away anything we struggle with and make us strong where we are weak.
Sainthood, in truth, is something each one of us should always be striving for.
But in striving for it, we have to recognize that we don't do it by our willpower, by our intellect, or by our strength.
We do it by Christ's presence.
