**The best way to crush pride and grandeur ?
Get married and have kids.**
Seriously though, OP, there is nothing at all wrong with admiring the saints and wishing to be like them. That is why the Church makes them saints, so we can strive to be like them.
It sounds as if you like the idea of having extraordinary graces like some of the saints did- visions, elocutions, levitations, healing the sick, raising the dead, reading hearts, prophecy, etc. I think that is actually a normal feeling to have- at first. It is easy to think that you could do great things in God’s Name as well if you could also see visions of the child Jesus playing on the altar as St. Faustina did.
However, God grants these gifts to particular people for their mission. He gives them those graces for the sake of the Church, to bring souls back to God. These saints were not granted these graces because they were so good as to merit them, but because they were created by God before the world even began for that particular purpose. And He gives graces to those whom He wills- none of us knows the reason why.
These saints suffered terribly for those gifts. Next time you feel tempted to ask for a ‘superpower’, so to speak, ask yourself how much you are willing to suffer for God. St. Therese died suffocating on her own blood for months. She had no sense of God’s presence at all- she wasn’t even sure He existed, she only hoped He did. Mother Teresa had visions and the very start of her mission, then God left her completely for the rest of her life. She suffered the Dark Night of the Soul for decades. Padre Pio was heavily persecuted by not only his own nearby diocesan priests, but the Vatican itself. His confessional was bugged by one of his Superiors, for years he was not allowed out of his monastery’s private rooms to see anybody but his fellow Capuchin brothers, say mass, hear confessions, preach, pray with the townspeople, or even write letters to anybody. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was dragged about the convent by her hair by her own sisters. St. John Vianney was tormented by thoughts of unworthiness and had a burning desire to be a monk- he had to forcibly be brought back to Ars each time he ran away in the dead of night. Can you imagine wanting to be a monk so badly and yet have to be dragged back by your own parishioners to hear confessions for fourteen hours a day? St. Francis of Assisi suffered from great self-hatred and was continually worried that God was say to him on his death- “You are an unprofitable servant.” Before he died he had contracted an eye disease that made them water continuously, gave him excruciating headaches so that he could not bear any light, eventually leaving him blind. The rats gnawed at his feet as he lay on the cold floor, begging one of his brothers to take his habit so that he could die naked as Christ was naked.
I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the idea.
I think you are ready to read works by St John of the Cross, if you haven’t already. In ‘Ascent to Mount Carmel’ he talks about this very temptation to wish for extraordinary graces and how to overcome this. Pray the Litany of Humility. Practice being the servant of all, especially those that despise you. God bless.
