Only saints change the world…”Holiness is a human life filled with God - The most beautiful life possible”…Don’t dismiss what you were created to be

This morning while doing my spiritual reading, I came across the words of a soon to be saint…Remember, saints are the only people who change the world…Saints give an example and point directly to God....This soon to be saint I read about this morning was the Venerable Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan…Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan was imprisoned by the Vietnamese government for 13 years….This is what he wrote…”Holiness is the most beautiful thing in the world…..If we were to gather all the light of the sun into a person, he or she would shine with splendor. Yet, as unimaginable as this splendor is, who can begin to speak of the beauty of a soul in which God dwells”…Do you know a holy life is possible for all of us - That means YOU!….And its the greatest thing one can allow to happen in their life….Most people on social media these days want to be instruments of change…I am one of them….The best way to be an instrument of change is the strive to be holy…People who are holy attract others to themselves…They are full of joy and peace…Not because of anything they do but because God is clearly shining through them….The good Cardinal from Vietnam goes on….”The saint is “made” by the happy collaboration of an individual with God, the author of all beauty. Holiness allows a person to show forth, like a vase of pure crystal, not merely a portrait of God but God’s true image”….Have you ever met a holy person?…If you have, I am sure of this, you will never forget them…..A holy life begins when we empty ourself and allow God to fill us…Again, we all can do this…It requires openness and effort…Its the most beautiful life possible that we can have here on earth

“A lamp to my feet is your word, a light to my path”

I have a homework assignment for you…If you just read what I wrote and do not believe it….Find a solid Catholic Religious Community…There are many in New York City where I live and volunteer for one day with them…Just one day, not too much time to ask right…And just watch the nuns do what they do…Watch their joy and how they make the people they serve happy…Doing simple things, nothing fancy….Everyone is searching for joy in this world bar none…We must ask ourselves - What is getting in between that joyful life we all want?….People who are close to God are filled with joy - Write what I just said down!…I have seen this kind of joy all over the world…..We were all made for this joy…And don’t let the world or any one person or thing keep you from this joy….Every day before the Missionaries of Charity sent us volunteers off into the streets of India after they served us breakfast this was the prayer they read to us:

Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.

Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,

That my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me

That every soul I come in contact with

May feel Your presence in my soul.

Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!

Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine,

So to shine as to be a light to others;

The light, O Jesus will be all from You; none of it will be mine;

It will be you, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me. Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example, By the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do, The evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.

I love this prayer for many reasons but the part I want to focus on today is this….”That my life may only be a radiance of Yours”…When you come right down to it…I can do nothing…But if I allow Jesus Christ into my life, my life’s example will radiate something the entire world yearns for…It has nothing to do with me, it has everything to do with giving God permission to enter my soul…You can do the same thing….Getting back to our friend Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan, he tells us today that “holiness is not a passive presence of God in a person but God’s life and action in that person”….We must give God permission to enter into our life…This is the greatest thing we can do while we walk this earth...”Let us hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope, for he who made the promise is trustworthy. We must consider how to rouse one another to love and good works"………Only saints change the world…”Holiness is a human life filled with God - The most beautiful life possible”…Don’t dismiss what you were created to be