We can all be saints

What I especially like is the way he died. The hagiography records that one year, while celebrating Easter with his monks, Abbot Pŷr drank such an excessive quantity of ale that he tripped into the monastery well and drowned.

What I find impressive is that no-one in the Celtic church thought any the worse of him for this. They just remembered his gentleness, his hard work building the monastery and his power in preaching the gospel.

So they put him into the list of saints, and quite right too. St Pŷr, patron of the pickled, pray for us!

Saintliness is not the same as perfection, which belongs only to God.

Many of the official saints of the Church had quite startling imperfections. But they were declared saints because they had some special quality or achievement which made people say, ‘Yes, Christ can be seen in this person – God’s light is clearly shining through him or her’.

And the same can be true of all of us.

We all have aspects of our life which need forgiveness, but we also have a capacity for heroism and holiness through which Christ can be seen.

When Paul addresses his letters to ‘the saints in Corinth’ and so on, he doesn’t mean they are perfect, or he wouldn’t nag them so much! He means everyone.

God calls us all saints, then asks us to live up to our calling.

So on All Saints Day this year (November 1st) don’t just remember people from the past. For all your faults and failings, remember you are a saint too.

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