You read a hagiography, and it seems impossible to become a saint, a fantasy to aspire to an unattainable beauty standard or economic status.  Miracles abound in these stories: breasts chopped off only to grow back, fingertips lit on fire to keep on reading the gospel in the dead of night.   

Most had to die martyrs to become saints, suffering unfortunate deaths at the hands of the powers-at-be throughout history.  In a world seemingly devoid of magic and further destroyed by greedy empire, it’s easy to carry on and say, “why bother?”

Why bother being a good neighbor or an engaged citizen, putting your trash in a garbage bin, sending a thank you card, calling your mom and/or a representative, smiling at a stranger, returning that text, being kind to waitstaff, or showing up for your friends?  

We all know a lousy friend.  The flake, the self-absorbed, the taker, the backstabber, the staring-at-their-phone-when-you-are-talking-to-them friend.  We have all been that lousy friend (is there a sin more common in this modern world than the phone check mid conversation?).  

But oh, to have a good friend!  The healing of laughter in good company, a shared history, a kind voice in an hour of darkness—our friends save us again and again.  They are the light in a dark world, they are the saints in our lives.  

How do you celebrate the saints in your life, those who show up for you, who guide and uplift you, who see the light in you?  To have good friends requires being a good friend, for what is the fate of the lousy friend, the hell of this lifetime?  Loneliness.

In order to surround yourself with saints, you have to be a saint.  Move through this wretched world like you have the power to yield miracles and live for someone greater than yourself.  Do not be afraid to love.