...Saints and Us...

(from a Nov. 2, 1986 conference)

In the days of the Apostles, and in the words of St. Paul, Christians were often referred to as ‘the Saints.”  In those days, they had a very vivid realization not of the virtues or amazing actions of Christians, but of the life of God that had been infused into them when they believed and were baptized.  The fact that someone had received the Holy Spirit was much more amazing than any consideration about his manner of life.  I do not mean that it did not matter whether they lived good or bad lives, of course, since the Holy Spirit leaves a person after baptism if that person lives a bad life, but the outstanding glory of a Christian is not his own virtuous life; it is the supernatural life within him.  This supernatural life is something so wonderful that it ought to fill us with spiritual joy whenever we think of it. . .

If we are in the state of grace, we belong to the Communion of the Saints, and God is living within us, living in our very life itself and not just in the things we do or avoid doing in the way of good and bad deeds.  If our conscience does not accuse us of any serious unrepented deliberate sin, then the state we are in is the state of God’s grace, and that is an extremely good state to be in.  If we saw what it really is like as some mystics have done, we should be overjoyed at the experience, and far from rejecting the term “Saint,” we should have to admit that we are very holy indeed, holy not by the good deeds we have done or the bad deeds we have avoided doing, but by God’s grace alone. .

Getting rid of sins, making good resolutions to improve, and so on are part of our life of seeking God, but they are a part of it in which we look at ourselves, and looking at ourselves is not very encouraging or inspiring.  Looking at God, on the other hand, is always inspiring and encouraging, and if we are prayerful people, looking at God makes us aware of our sinfulness and leads us to make good resolutions, because God’s light reveals to us the way we should go and does it without making us self-preoccupied, for we are occupied with God and see the self out of the corner of our eye in such a way that we do not turn away from God at all.  Living in God’s presence once we have received supernatural life ought to be our chief concern surely.  Jesus said that you do not put a lighted candle under a tub but on a candlestick so that its light can be seen.  How much more should we avoid burying the resplendent light of God within us under the awareness that we are not saints . . . [but] sinners only.

If, indeed, we are in the state of mortal sin through unrepented deliberate serious sin, then God’s light has gone out in us; He is no longer there supernaturally.  In that case, of course, we ought to feel very uneasy and look at our miserable condition and seek to get out of it.

[But] if we can reasonably hope that we are in the state of grace, then we are friends of God, for we have His life within us, and the description of us . . . as “Saints” is quite appropriate, as long as we do not use it as if we had become saints by our good works and outstanding virtues, like the official saints in the Church, for their cooperation with the light of God within them was vastly superior to ours. . .
In devout people who have a lack of confidence in God and, therefore, do not enjoy their prayers very much, their failure to trust Him and His attitude to them is the result of looking at themselves instead of at Him.  And a great deal of loss of peace of soul in prayer and in life comes from looking at ourselves instead of at God in Himself within us.

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