it seems like so many saints invoke punishments from God for the tiniest little thing. i feel like i’m going to send myself to hell without even knowing it. and their lives are so different from mine, they can giveup food, sleep and it seemed like they did a lot of kind of crazy things. maybe this is the devil putting thoughts in my head or something
My dear,
Please don’t be afraid of the saints, or of God in that way. Saints are held up as a model of godliness, of achieving closeness to God. But we are all called to Him, to be saints, in a different way. It might not be through great sacrifices, or martyrdom. It may be to worship God to the best of our abilities; those same abilities that God has given to us. He knows our abilities, our talents, our limitations. He doesn’t expect me to follow the path He has given to you, or vice versa. What may be a difficulty for one isn’t a difficulty for another.
These great saints you speak of, are not the only ones in Heaven, my friend.
The priest’s homily Sunday mentioned St. Monica. We might think we need to do large things, great things, amazing things. But St. Monica…she was called to be a great mother, to pray for her son, to be an example for him. It might seem that she had no other purpose on earth than the one for her son. That might not seem like much, until you realize that her son was St. Augustine, one of the greatest thinkers of the Catholic Church, and of the world. Without St. Monica, there would have been no St. Augustine; what a loss that would have been.
We are called to follow the straight and narrow; punishment can come from straying from that path. But think of it as a ‘correction’ to get us back on track.
