Have hope. There is a possibility of glorification if we wish. This is not, naturally, due to our own talents, skills, or aptitudes. If keeping score, most of us are not “winning” at the game of life. Whoever made the rules, we are not beautiful, smart, or good enough to win. What can we do? What is left to us? So many jobs, roles, or even ways of existing are just not open to us. I cannot will myself to write as well as a Bronte or have the insight of Saint Basil. Having begun badly, I can only hope to finish well.
We all can, if we turn Godward, begin anew. There is hope.
As Jesus was dying, there was a thief on a cross next to Him who called out to Jesus. He had harmed others and himself and could not even complain about having been treated unjustly. He had failed at every role, but when he cried out to Jesus, The King of Kings gave him a world historic role in the eternal beloved Kingdom! This thief was transformed to a saint, potent in the power of God in an instant. This is amazing grace and so hopeful. There always is room, an opening, for one more saint.
Today is a day when the Church in her wisdom recollects that there are millions of saints known only to God. There are people, I think of my grandparents, that are gone, but not to God. They found a role and a splendid place that no man can deny any human being.
God elects us all for the absolute romance of reality. We can love God and find that God also loves us. There is room in paradise for all of us. There is radiant beauty, glorious truth, and a merciful goodness without limit. Any human can end up as a means of grace for every living being until time is no more. We can be part of a great cloud of witnesses with all the saints praying for our brothers and sisters still to come through death to life.
After the end of history, when all the cosmos is restored and renewed, then glorification forever. Even the language of the great poet Dante failed when trying to describe a mere vision of that time.
The one amazing option open to anyone still living is sainthood.
Our humanity qualifies us, because God loves us. Our choice to turn toward God finds mercy and grace to be born again, to begin anew. Our task is simple: cease to do evil, begin to do good. This is (naturally) hard and God sees our failures. God tells us the truth, but then has mercy and allows us to continue in God toward God. God is Love and this beautiful love can draw us toward God.
We will know this is happening if we learn to love well. Love is the means, the measure, the end of all our striving. When the Kingdom is fully seen by us, we will marvel at the great saints we did not know. The Mother of God, holy Mary, is the model: of no consequence in her time, famous beyond all other mortals because she heard the Word of God and did it by grace.
There is room in the court of the King of Kings for us all. There is a vast cosmos and we will judge angels if we wish. If God glorifies, then the glorified are qualified.
Have hope.
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