What do you want to be remembered for? 

There are some saints we don’t know very much about. Amaswinthus is one of those saints. All we know is that he lived as a monk for 44 years, that he loved God very much, and that he has been remembered by the Church for his faith for 1,000 years. 

There is so much wisdom we can learn from people who spend their lives in prayer and service, living for God and not for the world. The truth is, we don’t even know the names of the vast majority of saints in heaven, but we do know that each of them discovered and embraced the power of collaborating with God.

Today, in memory of Amaswinthus, let’s ask God to help us discover and embrace the power of collaborating with him:

Lord,

Help us to realize that the saints were ordinary

people who made themselves available to you.

Give us the courage to make ourselves completely

available to you, so that together we can collaborate

in whatever ways you envision.

Amen.

Through these reflections on the daily saint, we have spent nearly an entire year meeting some of the greatest men and women who have ever lived. But perhaps the greatest obstacle to a meaningful and lasting connection with the saints is that we view them as unapproachable in their holiness. We think they are not like us or that it is impossible for us to live the way they lived. We actually dehumanize them by placing them on pedestals and stripping away the reality of who they were as human beings. We minimize their own struggles to follow God’s will. And we forget that the virtues they practiced and the wisdom they gained were developed in the ordinary moments of day-to-day life.

How can we rediscover the beautiful humanity of the saints? We hope that walking and talking with them throughout the year has helped you to see the saints for who they really are: Not unrealistic examples of holiness, but our greatest companions and friends in our own struggle to find joy and make sense of life. By discovering their beautiful humanity, we can discover our own.

Your greatest ability is your availability. The saints were ordinary people like you and me. They simply made themselves radically available to God, and he used them to do extraordinary things. Never forget that.



Feast Day: December 22 

Feast Day Shared By: Blessed Jutta of Disibodenberg, Blessed Thomas Holland, Saint Zeno of Nicomedia, and Saint Flavian of Acquapendente