Satan wants us to be saints–that is, merely human saints. Sanctity, that blessed thing that hangs high above our heads, that crowns the skulls of holy men, that emanates from the martyrs’ blood–it is sanctity that has, through divine fire, forged saints from mortal slag. “Take up your cross and follow me,” the undying epitaph of sainthood. It is in the saint that you see the face of Christ, that you hear the throbbing rush of His blood in him, that we witness the bridged worlds–Heaven kisses earth. We are, however, constantly beneath the enemy’s hands, his fingers dangling strings of faux sanctity, puppets of saintliness, a feigned holiness. We are told that sanctity does not require sacrifice. The agony, the self-forgetfulness, the humility, the dying of oneself, the cross, are all not necessary perquisites to sainthood.

Sanctity, as Satan wishes us to see it, becomes an extension of our own ego. We pray, we mutter the words, we attend Mass, we read the scriptures, we imprison ourselves in the monotony of routine and bleak spiritual activity. We are, in effect, spiritually stagnate–fat, comfortable, content, without a drop of sweat, a splinter, and streak of blood. We do not carry wooden crosses, rather we lay them aside and take up our own crosses–fluffy things, light as foam. These are our own standards of sanctity: a page of scripture, perhaps a thoughtless and meaningless spur of mental activity we call prayer, maybe an attendance of Mass. Within these parameters we rot. It is, as the enemy would have us believe, good enough. Halos are for saints, blood is for martyrs. Who are we to have our flesh torn? Who are we to feel the bite of thorns? We are modern men, safe, harmless little bags of flesh–fragile and delicate creatures. “Take up your cross and follow me”–it’s too heavy, we reply.

If the enemy is successful, God will become inevitably reduced to something we do, not someone we love. We kneel in prayer only to assure ourselves that it is good to kneel in prayer. We kiss the crucifix, we sign ourselves, we confess our sins, only to blush at the dazzling image of ourselves in a mirror–to see, perhaps, a tinge of gold appear above our heads. We want to be saints–lower the bar and you will, to your delusional surprise, become one, albeit a very sad one, a saint that doesn’t know true sanctity. Satan wants us to be saints for ourselves, not saints for God. Once holiness becomes synonymous with self-righteousness, we can be certain that the enemy has laid waste to us. As we sparkle in our contrived glamour of cold prayer and mindless Mass attendance, as we translate Christian humility into inward pride, Satan sneers from above, a flash of a fang, a condescending smirk–a sign of fiendish amusement.

Christ’s cross, however, calls only the saints of God. It is large, heavy, coarse–its weight is that of the world, that of mankind’s evil. We carry the cross only to die with it, to bury the sin of man, to bleed our pride, our selfishness into its grain–to become pale and trembling, to forget ourselves, to embrace Him. The Cross is the key to saintliness. It is only through the destruction of our own ego, through dissolving away our interests, our concerns, our wants, and conforming our will to His, that we become true saints. And, in the darkest hours, in the last watches of the night, when our living flesh gives way to cold and dead matter, when our breathing slows, our eyes fog, we will see, in the distance, the warming glow of the Son of Man, a fire in the dark, a heavenly candle, a slain lamb–And, only by losing ourselves, we will find ourselves in Him. Love Him first–this is sanctity, this is sainthood.