Becoming a Saint

One day, as I was teaching Church History, my students and I were discussing the lives of two saints who fought against each other, leading rival clans in a local war. One of my students questioned how they could be fighting each other if they were both saints. I replied simply, “they weren’t saints yet.” We tend to think of saints as deeply holy men and women, which they are…eventually. We forget that for most of the saints the journey to sanctity is just that, a journey. It takes time, usually an entire lifetime, to reach the level of personal sanctity that marks them as exceptional men and women of the faith. We know about dramatic conversions from lives of sin, like in the case of St. Augustine, but even with those cases we have this idea that once the conversion happened holiness was complete and absolute.

This idea is problematic both because it is simply not true and also because believing it to be true makes the saints seem unrelatable to us who are aware that our own holiness is not quite so absolute. We compare ourselves to the finished product, like comparing the rough first draft of a book to the carefully edited, polished, published final work.

St. Peter is an excellent example of the reality that, even once conversion happens, becoming a saint takes time and involves setbacks. We are all familiar with Peter’s denial of Jesus before the crucifixion and of the reparation of their relationship after the resurrection. We also know well how boldly Peter preached on Pentecost, bringing 3,000 new believers into the newborn Church. Surely now, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirt, Peter has become a holy and faithful witness to Christ, steadfast to the end. Well, St Peter will indeed be steadfast in the end, a humble and faithful martyr. Nevertheless, Sacred Scripture makes clear that, even after Pentecost, Peter wasn’t without faults. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul corrects Peter for his hypocrisy. Paul recounts, “And when Kephas (Peter) came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly wrong. For, until some people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to draw back and separated himself, because he was afraid of the circumcised.” (Gal 2:11-12) Peter changed his behavior due to fear. We’ve seen this before. Fear caused him to flounder after briefly walking on water and it led him to deny Jesus even after boldly claiming, “Lord, I am prepared to go to prison and to die with you.” (Luke 22: 33) Now Peter once again gives into fear, allowing it to weaken his relationships and his mission.

Peter has been reconciled to Christ, he has received the Holy Spirit, he is actively on mission proclaiming the Gospel, but he is not yet perfect in holiness. And that’s okay. He is called to be a saint and we know that he does in fact become a saint but that does not mean he is perfectly holy from the moment of his conversion until the end of his life. He grows in holiness through his life, learning humility through the occasional stumbles along the way.

We are all called to be saints and each day we need to strive for holiness, for sanctity, but striving implies that it is a struggle and some days we won’t win that struggle. We will give in to our besetting sins and imperfection, as Peter did with fear. Like Peter though we must accept correction and start again, taking another step on the path that leads to life. Stumble, arise, shake off the dust, press on, stumble again, repeat until in the end we too have become holy, reflecting the love and mercy of God who calls us to be saints and is patient with us in the process.