Three main reasons come up here for discussion why the "ordinary" Catholic fails to try to become a saint. There is, in the first place, the altogether erroneous idea that the saints are a privileged class, endowed with extraordinary graces and placed by God in circumstances that of their very nature foster a desire for sanctity and make it easy of attainment. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In Our Lord's own lifetime His best friends were sinners whom He was transforming into saints. There was Zacheus, the hated taxgatherer, there was the Samaritan woman; He went into the house of the first and accepted his invitation to dinner, and to a Samaritan woman who had been living in adultery He unfolded the marvels of the mystical life.
No class is excluded. You have Matt Talbot, the convert from drunkenness, becoming a saint in a Dublin workyard; Benedict Labre practicing heroic virtue as he begs his way through life; in the ranks of the saints there are soldiers and sailors, there are mothers and fathers, there are those who never lost their baptismal innocence and those who for years steeped their souls in sin.
Can we be saints? The answer is an affirmative, let the query be proposed by any person, whoever he be, whatever his record of sin or of virtue. All of us, without exception, are called to be saints, and it is not fitting that God should so call us without intending to give us what graces are necessary.
Can we be saints? A second specious excuse is that it is now too late to begin. In our younger days, perhaps, the ideal did appeal and seem as if we might make some success of it. But in the rough and tumble of life it has first become obscured and finally lost sight of. We have long since settled down to a state of comfortable mediocrity in God's service. Certainly we stop short of serious sin, but it is too late now to think of aspiring to great holiness of life.
A man who had been born blind was cured in a very short time when Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. Another who had been lying helpless for thirtyeight years felt himself suddenly strengthened when he encountered this wonderful Man.
In both cases Jesus did for the recipients of His favors more in a single flash than they had been able to do unaided all through these long years.
Something like this happens too in the spiritual order. "We ought to strive to become saints," advises St. Francis de Sales, "even if we knew we had only another quarter of an hour to live." And why? Because God is not hampered by the restrictions of time and space. In a single second He can give to the soul such an enlightenment and such an urge as to advance it in holiness farther than it ever attained to in all the years preceding.
It is never too late. In Our Lord's parable of the talents, those who worked only during the last hour of the day received the same reward as those who had borne the labor and the heat since early morning.
Jesus, it seems clear that I can still become a saint. My many lost opportunities should not deter me; my past mediocrity should be no reason for remaining mediocre. Omnipotent God, make me a saint!
Nor let me evade the issue by telling myself the way to holiness is too hard. "There must be no more cake and ale because I am good!'' Unquestionably the saint is asked to share closely in the sufferings of Christ. But the astonishing love of the cross seen in so many of the saints does not, ordinarily, spring up overnight. Little by little they are led to despise the baubles which used to attract them so powerfully, and, according as the heart is emptied of inordinate love of creatures, they fill it with love of the Creator. And love of Him becomes almost a sort of obsession and it impels them to express their love in the deeds of selfsacrifice. But the program need deter no soul of good will. God is not going to ask the impossible, and the soul will soon discover that its greatest happiness is to give and its keenest sorrow that it can give so little.
Jesus, I am a sinner. But what is the purpose of Your divine grace if not to transform sinners into saints? I can do all things in Him Who strengthens me.