John Riccardo - Heaven Starts Now: Becoming a Saint Day by Day

HEAVEN
STARTS
NOW

Becoming a Saint
Day by Day

Becoming a Saint
Day by Day

FR. JOHN RICCARDO

Copyright 2016 by John C. Riccardo

All rights reserved

Published by The Word Among Us Press

7115 Guilford Drive

Frederick, Maryland 21704

www.wau.org

20 19 18 17 16 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-59325-301-1

eISBN: 978-1-59325-489-6

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture texts used in this work are taken from The Revised Standard Version Bible, Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition), copyright 2006 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America, copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

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Cover design by Faceout Studios

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author and publisher.

Made and printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950651

Here at Our Lady of Good Counsel, we recently remodeled an area behind the sanctuary. The new construction left an open area with a wall directly across from a twenty-four-hour adoration chapel, and we wondered what to do with it. We decided that we wanted people who were walking out of the chapel to be greeted by the saints. So we asked an artist in Florida to paint images of several saintsElizabeth Ann Seton, Fulton Sheen, Kateri Tekakwitha, Solanus Casey, Mother Cabrini, and Pierre Toussaint.

Why these saints in particular? First, because they are American and, second, because they are modern. They remind us that sainthood and saintliness are not only for people centuries ago, in faraway places such as Europe or the Middle East or Africa. Sainthood is for us, now.

And thats the point of this book. We are called to become saints. Often people will say, Im just trying to figure out Gods will for my life. In 1 Thessalonians 4:3, St. Paul wrote, For this is the will of God, your sanctification. Thats Gods will for youto become a saint. Thats the plan.

The chapters in this book come from talks I gave at my parish. Those attending had completed the ten-week Alpha course. More than two thousand people at OLGC have now been through the program. Its goal is to make disciplesto help people, maybe for the first time in their lives, truly encounter Jesus and the power of his Holy Spirit.

Alpha had a significant impact on the people who completed the course. Based on the evaluations we received, 52 percent said Alpha had a significant or life-changing impact on them. As a result of going through Alpha, they now say they have a deeper faith or have grown in their faith. Of those, 10 percent said they had a life-changing experience with Jesus. Thats phenomenal. And that is precisely the goal of Alpha: to lead people into a deeper relationship with Jesus. In Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis explains why its important that we hear, first and foremost, that Jesus loves us and wants to have a relationship with us.

The first proclamation must ring out over and over: Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen, and free you. This first proclamation is called first not because it exists at the beginning and can then be forgotten or replaced by other more important things. It is first in a qualitative sense because it is the principal proclamation, the one which we must hear again and again in different ways. (164)

That messagethe proclamation of the love of Godhas to precede everything else, he says. Then all else will follow.

It is the message capable of responding to the desire for the infinite which abides in every human heart. The centrality of the kerygma calls for stressing those elements which are most needed today: it has to express Gods saving love which precedes any moral and religious obligation on our part; it should not impose the truth but appeal to freedom; it should be marked by joy, encouragement, liveliness, and a harmonious balance which will not reduce preaching to a few doctrines which are at times more philosophical than evangelical. All this demands on the part of the evangelizer certain attitudes which foster openness to the message: approachability, readiness for dialogue, patience, a warmth and welcome which is non-judgmental. (165)

Thats what happened during Alpha here at OLGC. Participants sat in small groups and felt free to say anything; there was no judgment. The message we heard over and over again was intended to lead us to an encounter with God who is love. And when we experience that love, we can then ask, What am I supposed to do with this now? Here is Pope Francis answer:

The first proclamation also calls for ongoing formation and maturation. Evangelization aims at a process of growth which entails taking seriously each person and Gods plan for his or her life. All of us need to grow in Christ. Evangelization should stimulate a desire for this growth, so that each of us can say wholeheartedly: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20). (160)

Jesus said, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13). Alpha is the first letter of the twenty-four-letter Greek alphabet, and Omega is the last letter. We start with the kerygma, the proclamation: God loves you so much that he sent his Son to die for you. Omega is the end pointsainthood. The goal is to grow in Christ, as Pope Francis says, so that we can become saints.

So the goal of this book is to help you grow in Christ. In fact, the title is derived from something I heard from the auxiliary bishop of our archdiocese here in Detroit, Bishop Mike Byrnes. He said, We need serious application of the Scripture to our lives right now so that we can begin to live the life of heaven now, not just get to heaven. Thats a great distinction. We want to begin now to live the life of heaven.

In the following chapters, we are going to look seriously at Scripture in seven different areas involving issues that we have to grapple with in some way or another in our lives. We want to learn what the Lord says to us about these topics so that we can grow in Christ and let him mold and form us. Questions for your own reflection or for group discussion are included at the end of each chapter.

In our world today, there is an urgent need for saints, ordinary people who surrender their lives to Jesus and become reflections of his own divine nature here on earth. Thats how we start living the life of heaven now. Theres no time to lose, so lets begin!

Heres a question I want you to consider: do you, right now, have a plan, and are you working at it, so that one day you will become a saint? Will someone someday want to make a painting or statue of you because of the way you lived your life? We risk misunderstanding the whole point of life if our goal, our plan, is not sainthood. The nineteenth-century French writer Lon Bloy wrote, The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.