You cannot be a half a saint. You must be a whole saint or no saint at all.

~St Theresa of Lisieux

I can remember as a kid thinking about the saints and dreaming about how I could one day be one. I was probably in 2^nd or 3^rd grade and I really wanted to be a saint. I developed these grandiose ideas of mission work and martyrdom and pretty fantastical ideas of what that would look like. In my mind sainthood meant doing something so outstanding that I would one day be canonized. Somewhere along the way I lowered the bar and stopped thinking about sainthood and prayed for the grace to be good enough. If I’m honest sometimes I didn’t worry about it all!

Fast forward to a November quite a few years back. I was chaperoning my daughters NCYC trip. I will never forget Steve Angrisano asking a stadium filled with Catholics if anyone wanted to be a saint. No one made a peep. Steve then reminded us that everyone in heaven is a saint, not just those that are canonized. You can only imagine that all hands shot up then. I’m sure I was taught that at some point in my catholic school education.  What stuck, however, was that being a saint was next to impossible and probably beyond my ability.

So where do I stand now. I think you could say I have come full circle. Being a saint is my number one goal! And not just my goal for me, but helping those around me get there too. I now understand that becoming a saint means walking this journey with others and urging them on, letting them carry me when I stumble and being there to carry them too. It is my vocation as a wife to be that person for my husband. Helping him reach sainthood and praying and encouraging my children towards it also. It is a rocky road I travel and I stumble far more than I would like. What I can’t imagine is making this journey without our Church and my faith friends that are making this journey with me. To me that is the why of women’s ministry. We have a goal and it’s not a goal we can get to by doing it halfway. And in my opinion it is next to impossible to be done alone.

This month, I will be traveling throughout our diocese presenting informational meetings on what joining our FIAT Women’s Ministry movement is. And yes I like to call it a movement, not another committee or club, but Faith In Action Together. We will initially have 12 core team locations throughout the diocese and I will be visiting 6 of them this November. We will pick back up after the holidays and meet with the rest in early 2024. I hope you will come out and explore the many ways you can get involved. What they will become, is a story yet to be written, but I hope you will help me pen the pages. Our stories might never show up in an all About the Saints book but that doesn’t mean our stories can’t have power and meaning in our little part of the world. I recently attended a seminar and the speaker boldly proclaimed that our savior didn’t die for a powerless church. But He did leave that power in us. Let’s not do this halfway!

We Are Better Together,

Barb