Fr. Andrew McAlpin OP is a Dominican Friar, a high school teacher and campus minister, a US Navy veteran, a bass player, a good listener and an Insanity graduate. You can read his blog at: http://www.andymacop.blogspot.com
Every year I am challenged by the rigors of Lent to do something that really matters in the world. Not just my isolated world of the people that see me every day, but the greater world that does not know me at all. This is a bold task and it can seem to miss the point of Lent, which should be to unite our sufferings to the Cross of Christ for the salvation of the entire world by prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
But there is something greater that all of us can do. We can become saints here and now. Holiness is the true call of every human being ever born. While the world normally rejects this calling for everyone in general, it also knows that there are individuals who do rise up and become saints in this world. When every Christian understands fully that we are called to become authentic saints in this world, we will see such an incredible change in the world that it will not go unnoticed.
But how do we do it? When do we start? What if we fail? The truth is you will fail, so you must start and restart several times day. That is what a saint does, when he falls, he gets back up, when she stumbles, she rights herself and moves forward. That is the path of the saint: constantly, slowly, moving toward God in every aspect of one’s life.
This is the greatest thing you can do this Lent and every Lent: commit to the holiness to which you have been called. Small, repeated acts of selflessness each and every day will begin to turn you into the saint you are meant to be.
Thank you for the reminder that we will fail, but that the grace is in getting back up to start again on our journey toward an ever better relationship with God. With barely a week into this Lenten season, I was already feeling the pressures and weights of the failures I have already had, and I really needed this reminder. For a perfectionist like myself, it is the failing and the falling that are almost worse than never having tried, and while it is something I want to get over and let go of, I am still very much in need of remembering that God loves us in our imperfections and that each time I get up from falling, I have the possibility of being that much closer to God. Thank you.
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