The Best and the Rest

It’s a great joy to join you all in today’s mass. I’m grateful to God to join alongside Fathers Ayad, Rodney, and Milan. I thank them for their brotherhood and hospitality in allowing Mart Mariam to make me feel like home. I’m so happy for this community because you have had wonderful priests to lead this parish. You are very lucky.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God, Amen.

Growing up in the church, I always heard of this great calling that we are all called to holiness. We’re all called to be great saints! When I heard this, I was always intimidated by it.

I knew I would strive for excellence. Try to be the best person I could be. But the more I would look into the lives of the saints, I felt a level of impostor syndrome.

You’ve got St. Joseph of Cupertino levitating, St. Padre Pio being in two locations at once and reading people’s souls, you’ve got Mother Theresa tackling the problem of the sick and forgotten in the streets of India and around the world, St. Francis Xavier raising the dead, St. Anthony of Padua making a mule kneel before the Eucharist. All these are miracles that accompany the lives of the saints. I would think, in my day and age, in my life, I don’t think I’m capable of performing these spiritual miracles. I don’t think I could even be as holy as these people were. And even if I started now, there’s no way I could be a saint with the road ahead of me.

This calling reminded me of when I was a young kid dreaming of one day entering the NBA and recognizing that being 5’8” Suraya, I don’t think I would make it among the elite few. I wasn’t even close.

Jesus today in the Gospel meets us after he resurrected and gives the apostles the great commission, telling the disciples of what good work they would be doing after He leaves. His work would be even greater than the work he did.

How much greater will theirs be than Jesus? He stopped the storms, he changed water to wine, he walked on water, he ROSE from PHYSICAL DEATH.

And Jesus makes a list. This is a hefty list and wonderful one to say the least. But I don’t see any of us disciples speaking new languages miraculously, being unaffected by poison, healing the sick, casting out demons, and being snake charmers.

Maybe there are some here in Chicago, but I don’t know many in Arizona with those gifts! So what’s going on? Do we not believe enough? Are we failing with this mission to become saints?

Thankfully, we have some writings from the Church Fathers who can help us understand this calling of Jesus a little better.

St. Gregory the Great, in the early church, brings to mind to the faithful that those miracles Jesus was talking about were things that affected physical nature—healing the body of a person, speaking in a new language, being unhurt by deadly poison, carrying serpents.

But he continued in saying that the CHURCH continues to do in a spiritual way what the early church did in a bodily way.

He says, we might not be:

Casting out demons—we might not be formal exorcists—but when we pray for someone and help walk them out of their dark times, when we intercede for someone bound by anger or addiction or despair, we are doing the work of spiritual deliverance.

We might not be speaking miraculously in a language we don’t know, but when we stay away from cursing others, gossiping, lying, slander, and use our mouths to glorify God and build up the church, do we not have a new tongue that is set apart and consecrated for God?

We might not be taking up serpents, but when you gently remove bitterness or resentment from yours or another’s heart, you are handling what is deadly without being bitten.

We may not be drinking deadly poison unhurt, but when the world pours toxic counsel into your ears daily—and you hear it, but are unshaken in your faith, you take in the poison of the world but remain unhurt.

We may not be healing the sick, but when your brother or sister grows weak in faith, in hope, in love—and you come alongside them with your own example, your encouragement, your presence—you heal, not just their bodies for a short time, but their soul for eternity.

James 5 says something wild: “Whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

Did you hear that? One act of bringing a wandering soul back covers a multitude of sins—theirs and, some Fathers say, your own. That’s the spiritual weight of what you’re capable of.

My friends, St. Gregory doesn’t just say these are the difference between what is physical and spiritual. He says the spiritual—that we can actually all do—is GREATER.

St. Gregory says, “These signs therefore, dearest brethren, if you wish, you also may with divine approval perform.”

He’s not talking to priests and nuns. He’s speaking to you. To me. To all those who believe in his name.

We’re not just to be spectators to the saints of history, but we’re called to be the saints of the most ordinary present.

We don’t need a stigmata. We don’t need to levitate or read souls.

We just need the Spirit of God to lead us and the open heart to be led by God.

And how do we receive this Spirit? How do we open ourselves to this work?

St. Paul shows us in today’s second reading. He tells us that Christ Jesus—though he was in the form of God—did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. He humbled himself.

That’s the method. That’s how the Spirit works through us. Not by grasping for greatness, but by emptying ourselves. By taking the lower place. By serving.

And we see this lived out in today’s first reading from Acts. When the apostles needed to replace Judas, they didn’t choose someone extraordinary by the world’s standards. They chose Matthias—a man we know almost nothing about. An ordinary man, stepping into an extraordinary calling. That’s what God does. He takes the ordinary and makes it holy.

In many ways, God has been using every part of your life to make you the saint you’re called to be. Yes. YOU. The good parts. The bad parts. The successes. The failures. The shameful parts that haunt us and we want to forget. All these are part of the great recipe God is using to prepare you to belong to him fully.

If you think you don’t have what it takes—God can use anything. He can take your broken parts and make them beautiful. He’s a master artist who can take ALL your scraps, the broken pieces, and turn them into a beautiful and inspiring mosaic.

What he needs is you. He needs you to give it all to him. Lay it all out for him. God didn’t make it impossible for you to become an extraordinary saint in your ordinary life.

So if you don’t know where to start, I leave you with this:

This week, ask yourself: Which of these five signs will I perform?

Whose darkness will I pray through?

What new tongue will I speak—words of blessing instead of complaint?

Whose bitterness will I help remove?

What lie of the world will I refuse to act on?

Whose weak faith will I strengthen by my presence?

Do what you’re supposed to. Do what you’re called to. Do your best—God will do the rest. Amen.