Living a Saint's life.

Dear parishioners,

One of the goals I made for myself as I was preparing to begin my time in the One in

Christ ACC is to be intentional about the homilies I preach. More specifically, my intention and desire is to walk through the stages of growth in the spiritual life according to spiritual tradition of the Church as articulated by the saints throughout the history of the Church. The saints have a profound way of taking the teachings of Scripture and the Church and living them in a way that leads to deeper and deeper knowledge and love of God. We tend to become like our friends. If our ultimate goal in life is to live for the praise of God’s glory by becoming saints, we would do well to become friends with the saints. This has been one of the greatest ways my own spiritual life has been deepened and enriched.

Though the saints use different words to express the stages of growth, the classic breakdown that they all point to is known as “the three stages of the interior life”. The first stage is known as the purgative way in which we focus on repentance (purging our lives of sin), and on detachment to worldliness.

The second stage is known as the illuminative way where we seek to grow closer to God through prayer, the cultivation of virtue, and growing in our knowledge of God. The third stage is known as the unitive way in which a person comes to spiritual maturity and lives in deep union with God with a constant awareness of His presence. The saints consistently teach that growth in the spiritual life is a life-long process. Sometimes the progress seems slow and imperceptible, yet often in hindsight we can recognize the growth that has happened.

I will focus more heavily on the first two stages since that’s where a great deal of effort is required. It’s like when a rocket is being launched into space. Most of the fuel is burned up at the beginning of the journey in order to break out of the Earth’s gravity and atmosphere. In order to break out of our habits of sin and worldly mentalities we have to be willing to suffer what it takes to overcome sin and take on the mind of Christ in every moment of life. Many people make it to a certain level of the spiritual life but then stop growing because they are unwilling to surrender everything and be completely abandoned to God. In order to make it to the third stage, we have to be willing to uncompromisingly give everything in the first two stages.

With this in mind, there will be a number of themes that I intend to focus on that will walk us through these stages. First, the call to holiness. God’s will is for all of us to become saints. This is not a special privilege for the few but God’s desire for all of us. We need to be convinced that there’s nothing greater we can receive from God or do in life than to become saints.

And there’s nothing that will give a person greater joy and fulfillment in life than to become a saint. The second theme is repentance. You can’t get very far if you’re driving with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. This theme includes the call to practice virtue in order to uproot vice. The third theme is the sacraments which are the most powerful and fruitful way we allow God to sanctify us. The fourth theme is prayer. The saints are clear that a person cannot become a great saint without a deep life of prayer. A fifth theme will be ongoing spiritual formation which includes things such as spiritual reading and various devotions we can practice to deepen our spiritual lives. And finally, a sixth theme will be evangelization. We are not called to be spiritual islands, but to encounter the power of God in our lives and to share that with others in order to help them seek deeper relationship with God as well.

Please continue to pray daily for Fr. Tom and myself as we seek to shepherd the One in Christ ACC.

Fr. Patrick