Are You a Saint or Are You a Sinner?

Are you a saint or a sinner? In this homily, Fr. Martin reflects on a powerful insight from Venerable Fulton J. Sheen: every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. Drawing from the examples of the Twelve Apostles, the words of Pope Francis, and St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, this message reminds us that God does not define us by our failures. Instead, He looks upon us with mercy, loves us in our brokenness, and calls us to holiness. We are sinners whom the Lord has looked upon with compassion—and saints in the making.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Good morning. Today we celebrate our known by name weekend, which normally we do on the first weekend of the month, but because we had our Corpus Christi processions last week, we bumped to this second uh weekend of the month. So in just a moment, I'm gonna invite you to uh greet somebody new, get to know a new name, and to offer prayers for them. And I want to ask you to ask these two questions. Two questions. First question is who are you rooting for in the World Cup? Um that's the first question. And then second, how can I pray for you today? Again, it's part of building community, getting to know people and praying for each other. Two questions. Who are you rooting for and how can I pray for you today? Let's take a moment to greet somebody new and ask those two questions. Let's take a moment to do that. This is good. This is good. Great. All right. So who are you guys voting for? Who are you guys voting for? USA naturally, right? USA. Great. And um, hopefully you met somebody new, and at the end of the prayers of the faithful, we'll pray for that person and for that their intentions that you just uh heard from them. And then uh great. And before my homily today, just one last thing. Today the diocese is asking all of our churches in our parishes to take up a second offertory for the Universal Church Collection to support our Holy Father, Pope Francis, as well as Catholic Relief Services, which helps in different countries around the world. So that'll be part of our Mass today as well. Okay, so the theme of my homily today is Are you a saint or are you a sinner? What do you think? How would you respond? Sinner? Okay. I heard somebody say both. Nobody said saint? Okay, alright. Uh, I'm gonna share with you like a very brief video clip. There's this guy named um Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Anybody heard of that name before? Archbishop Fulton Sheen? Okay, okay, that's a good number of hands. He had a famous television show in the 50s uh called Life Is Worth Living. And it was the top television series during his time. And I want to share with you a clip about a one-minute from Archbishop Fulton Sheen that talks about this topic. Are you a saint or are you a sinner? Now, the audio is a little bit uh garbled, but if you pay very close attention, I think you'll be able to make out the words that he says. So I'm gonna ask our media team to play that clip now from Archbishop Sheen on this topic. Are you a saint or are you a sinner?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Any sinner is capable of being a great saint. And any saint is also capable of being a great sinner. The secret therefore of character development is the realization of this power that there is in each and every one of us. We're good and we're evil. The good Lord would have us lay all what is worse than ourselves. Do not think people who have virtue and kind of another great power doesn't mean by these things happening. They had to work out it very hard. You've often heard that Moses was mean. Matter of fact, Moses once killed an equal. And now when he was given the commandments, he came down and found his people adoring the race and hat, and he smashed the tablet on a stone. He was the first one in the world to break all the commandments at once.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

All right. So that's uh Archbishop Fulton Sheen on the 50s. He's an incredible speaker, people tuned into by the millions every single week. That's an incredible. I want to bring up so for those who weren't able to hear those words at the very beginning, I want to bring those words onto the screen that he said about saints and sinners. Can we read these? These are the words that he said. Let's read together. Any sinner is capable of being a great saint, and any saint is also capable of being a great sinner. Wow. Okay. Share two more quotes from Sheen about this same topic. Two last quotes from him. Next one? Together. A sinner is not the opposite of a saint. A sinner is the raw material out of which a saint is made. Hmm. Isn't that interesting? Raw material out of which a saint is made. Last quote from Sheen here. Okay, together? The only difference between the sinner and the saint is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. Deep, huh? Profound from Archbishop Sheen. So, are you a saint or are you a sinner? Maybe a little bit of both, huh? Okay. Let me let me share this quote. Do you guys remember uh Pope Francis? You guys remember Pope Francis? God rest his soul, right? Passed away a little bit right after Easter. He had this to say about this theme of whether he is a saint or a sinner. So Pope Francis said these words. We're gonna read this together as well. The best summary of who I am, the one that comes more from the inside, and I feel most true is this I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon. But the Pope recognizes, Pope Francis recognizes I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon with mercy. Now, when I was doing some research on this, I found a picture online, it's a cartoon, and showing Pope Francis having his feet washed by Jesus. Isn't that a beautiful image? That that Jesus looks upon him just like he looks upon us with great compassion, with kindness, knowing that we're sinners, but looking upon us with great mercy. So I don't know if all this is true for you, but this is true for me. That I am capable of doing amazing things and I'm capable of doing terrible things. Is this true for you as well? Okay, alright. I'm not the only one? Okay. It's true of all of us. We have the capacity to do great good or great evil. We have the capacity to be sinners or to be saints. Now, when we look at our gospel today, Jesus calls these apostles, and how many apostles were there? There were the twelve apostles, and each of them were saints with the past, and they were sinners with a future. When we look at their stories, when we look at their names, let's bring up the names of these apostles whom Jesus called, and we're gonna see each of them had a story. Let's look at that next slide there, and we're gonna read these names of the apostles whom Jesus called to follow him. Let's read together. Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector, James the son of Alpheus and Thaddeus, Sinon from Cana, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Each of them has a story, right? Okay. Now if I were to point out one of those names, I bet you could share with me a little bit about their story, maybe some of their flaws, their failings, their foibles. So how about Peter? What did Peter do at the end of Jesus' life before his crucifixion? What did he do? He denied Jesus, didn't he? How about let's speak another name. How about uh Thomas? What did he do after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead? Thomas doubted, didn't he? How about uh Matthew? Uh what was his uh profession during his time before he was called to be an apostle? He was a tax collector, right? Uh how do you feel about tax collectors today compared to Okay? Yeah, not okay. All right, so they were saints with a past and sinners with a future. They were both saints and sinners. Saints and sinners. And it's the same for all of us. You know, God, if somebody comes to Mass and say, I'm sinful, I don't think I can become a saint, I don't think I can become holy, I don't think I could become the person that God fully wants me to be. God says this. So we heard this from the second uh letter, second reading from Paul to the Romans. I love this scripture passage, Romans 5, 8. The proof of how much God loves us, and that he calls us to be holy, to be saints. Let's read this one. God proves his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That's the proof how much God loves us. He died, Jesus died for us on the cross, and he calls us to this lofty vocation of being saints. We're gonna do one last scripture verse. This is verse 10, Romans 5, 10. Okay, next one together. Indeed, if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life? This is the beauty of our faith. That even though we're sinners, we have a savior. Even though we're broken, we have a healer. Even though we may be lonely, we have a friend. And his name is Jesus. We may be sinners, but he looks upon us with mercy, with love, with compassion, and he calls us to be saints. Okay. I want to conclude this homily uh with a song. Now, in our first reading uh from the book of Exodus, we heard that God raised up the Israelite people as on eagle's wings. And so uh I want to sing this song as a way of recognizing that God lifts us up as on eagles' wings to become saints, to become holy, to become fully the people that God wants us to be. Have you heard that song before on Eagle's Wings? I'm gonna invite you to sing that song with me, recognizing how God raises us up to become saints. And so we'll sing this together, we'll have our music ministry lead us. Make you shine like the last first a cappella without a piano just to our voices.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

And he will raise you up on e o sweet.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

You close your eyes for a moment. Let me pray with and for you. Lord our God, we give you thanks because of great love, compassion, mercy for each and every single one of us. Jesus, the crowd, you looked upon them with compassion. Because they were like sheep without a shepherd. You look at each and every single one of us with that same tenderness, that same love, that same compassion. Lord, when we are weighed down by our sins, we feel like we can't approach you, we feel like we can't be forgiven. You know, the Lord knows what I've I've done, I can never be forgiven, I could never be a saint. The Lord has a different word to speak to us today. I know your sin. I know your path. I know your failings. I know everything that you have and everything that you are. No matter what you do, no matter who you get, I'm calling you to gratification. I'm calling you to be a saint. I'm calling you to be holy. I'm calling you to be fully the person that I've created you to be. So, Lord, we ask that you send the Holy Spirit upon us, each and every single person. Wipe away our sins and help us to look forward to your grace, your light, your presence, and your call for us to be saints. Thank you, Lord, for your great love and compassion towards all of us. We ask the intercession of Mary, our mother, Saint Joseph, our patron, and all the angels and saints in heaven. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.