November 1st is the day on which Christians celebrate all saints, known and unknown. But what is a ‘Saint’? In St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians we read: ‘To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ (I Cor 1:2). What does St. Paul mean by use of the word ‘saint’? In other translations of the Bible, ‘called to be saints’ is translated from the original Greek as ‘called to be holy.’ So saint is a synonym for holy.
Interestingly, in the New Testament, being ‘called to be saints’ appears to depend on being sanctified in Christ Jesus. So what does this mean? Well, the word ‘sanctify’ means to set apart for sacred use, consecrate, to make holy, purify, to make productive of holiness or spiritual blessing. As Christians we are ‘sanctified in Christ Jesus’ at our Baptism. So by our Baptism – our sanctification – we are all called to be saints. In fact, when St. Paul talks about ‘disciples,’ ‘the true believers,’ and ‘the church,’ he uses the word ‘saints,’ – the holy ones, the holy people of God. Paul puts it very bluntly, you are either one who is holy or you are not a Christian at all. So why is Paul so concerned with holiness? Very simply, because he experienced God! Paul understood that we are saints only because God’s holiness makes us holy (c.f. Romans 11:16). Therefore, to become holy we must accept God’s presence in our lives. God makes us holy if we want to be made holy; if we say ‘yes.’ In the Old Testament we see that when people respond positively to God, they are redeemed; they become the people with whom God dwells. They are holy because they become God’s dwelling place – God’s temple.
In summary, I am God’s dwelling place when I accept the love and the grace that God showers on me, creating me in God’s image and likeness. I become something new. However I can only do this by opening myself to the power of the Holy Spirit. The prophet Ezekiel tells us: ‘Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh’ (Ezekiel 11:19). Similarly, St. Paul says: ‘…put on the new person which was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness’ (Ephesians 4:24). St. Peter exorts us: ‘because it is written, ‘Be holy, for I [God] am holy’ (I Peter 1:16). To do this we need to say as Jesus said in the Garden, ‘Not my will but Thine be done.’ Without the Holy Spirit this is impossible for us, but as the Angel Gabriel reminded Mary: ‘nothing is impossible with God’ (Luke 1:37). So my prayer is that I ask God to help me to place myself fully in God’s care, to abandon myself to God, knowing that God always wants what is best for me.
