Prayer is a key to our holiness. The Fatima children displayed prayer more than many people ever did. Their prayer was a very important part in their saintly lives. Their prayer led them to do other great and holy deeds. For example, their prayer led them to be able to stand up for what is right. People questioned and criticized them for thinking that they saw the Virgin Mary appearing to them. Their prayerfulness, that all of us are capable of receiving, gave them the courage to stand up for what is right in front of everyone, including their parents.
How can we do what the Fatima children did? We can't claim the Virgin Mary appeared to us and told us to pray all these different prayers. Do we pray only in front of other people and pretend to be the holiest person in the world? No. The reason we pray is to talk to God, not to show off in front of other people. When we pray we want to be focused on what God thinks about us and not how people think about us.
How is this important to our lives? Without prayer we have no way of communicating with God. Without being able to communicate with God we can't be happy because God is the source of all happiness. It's like going an entire day without talking to any of your friends. You would want to talk to them but since you couldn't you would feel left out, or unhappy. It is the same way for God. We should consider God as a friend and feel unhappy and deprived if we don't talk to him.
Sunday Eucharist is another way that can lead us to sainthood. We can receive the Eucharist during Mass. However, we can't just receive the Eucharist and after that forget about it. We have to carry God with us wherever we go. God will start becoming more and more part of us and when we become more like God we become holier. You must keep the Eucharist available to you so that God may constantly make you more like him.
Obviously, in order to be holy, God has to become part of us. When God becomes part of us we receive grace but we also receive many different characteristics. As I was saying before, the Fatima children received courage and prayerfulness from the Virgin Mary. That was their way of letting God become part of them. Of course we can do it through receiving God at mass in the Eucharist.
If we don't let God enter us then we will start to become more influenced by temptation rather than God. Just like with prayer we will be deprived from God's love and we will be unhappy. The Eucharist is also important because it can eliminate venial sins. These venial sins are extremely important to our eternal destination. You might think that venial sins aren't that important and that you only have to worry about mortal sins. However, the more venial sins you commit throughout your life, the more likely it is that you will end up being tempted into committing a venial sin or mortal sin. If the Eucharist can eliminate venial sins, then it's extremely important to take advantage of that grace.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation is when we tell a priest, who is acting as Christ, our sins and then we are forgiven. After that we might just commit that same sin and think, “Oh well, I'll just confess it at reconciliation.” However, God is in the souls of everyone. When we sin we are also hurting God because God has become a part of all of us. Therefore, during the Sacrament of Reconciliation we are not just being forgiven for what we have done to human beings, but what we have done to God. So if you're thinking that a sin is no big deal and that you can just be forgiven at reconciliation, think, again. Remember, God can hear our thoughts, and if we are making these thoughts heard by God, we won't be letting God become a part of us.
The same like Sunday Eucharist, if we don't use this guideline for our holiness God can't become part of us. This is also important to us because we need to be renewed by God every once in a while. Now that we renewed we have a promise to fulfill. In Reconciliation, we promise that we will not sin again. We always do though, so that wouldn't that be a sin because we have broken a promise? No. God made Reconciliation that we may receive second and third chances. From these many chances we start to learn how to keep our promises made to God by not sinning. This will lead us into more holy lives.
