In the Catholic tradition, All Saints’ Day is celebrated on 1 November. This day publicly venerates ‘all’ the saints, officially canonised or not, who lived heroically virtuous lives and who are worthy of imitation. That’s right - imitation!

By virtue of our baptism, we are all called to holiness. We are called to sainthood. By virtue of our original blessing, we are called to goodness, after all, God made the world and humankind and saw it was good.

However, for some, the idea of imitating and being saintlike might seem unattainable. Even laughable. “A saint? Who me? I’m no saint. I think you have the wrong person” - we might find ourselves thinking.

Like oranges to apples, we might find ourselves comparing our ordinary lives and less than flattering qualities, to those of the saints characterised by piety, charity, miracles, and marvellous feats. Some even accomplished in true superhero fashion through the power and blazing glory of God, as their stories are told.

Often these familiar stories of the saints focus on the most altruistic and heroic aspects of their lives. However, when we get to know the saints and their stories a little further we begin to see the journey to sainthood involves the full range of human emotion and experience. For a number of saints, the journey to holiness involved a great deal of brokenness and beginning again. We might call this a journey from transgression to transformation, whereby the mess of our lives gives rise to the message and mission of God.

Consider St Matthew, chosen by Jesus to be one of the twelve apostles and author of one of the four canonical Gospels. As a Jew collecting taxes for the Roman government his ‘priors’ involved tormenting those who could not pay.

Or St Francis of Assisi, the great teacher and steward of Creation. St Francis was known for being vain and self-centred, indulging lavishly in earthly pleasures, quite ironically.

His Holiness Pope Francis helps to put this into perspective. Once he was asked, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?" And his most humble reply was, "I am a sinner.”

These words of Pope Francis, along with the secret lives and seldom-told stories of the saints, reveal these holy people are just like us. They are poets, healers, practical jokers, environmentalists, travellers, and finders of lost things. Each with their own stories, doubts, and struggles, but importantly created and called by goodness, for goodness.

Put simply by Mother Teresa, “Saints are only sinners who keep trying.” As we are reminded to imitate the goodness of the saints this week, we do so with the comfort of knowing that God’s love is never too far out of reach. Knowing we are always loved, our goal then is to simply keep trying for goodness. Venerated or not, this is the path to holiness.