One of my favourite saints is St Pŷr. He was Abbot of Caldy Island in West Wales during the sixth century. What I especially like is the way he died.

One Easter while celebrating with his monks Abbot Pŷr drank such a quantity of ale that he tripped into the abbey well and drowned.

What I find impressive is that no-one in the Celtic church thought any the worse of him for this. They just remembered his gentleness, his hard work, and his power in preaching the Gospel.

So they included him in the saints’ calendar, and quite right too. St Pŷr, patron of the pickled, pray for us!

Sainthood is not the same as perfection. When St Paul addressed his letters to "the saints at Corinth" and so on, he was under no illusion that they were perfect. But he still calls them saints, holy to the Lord, because Christ has counted us holy.

The canonised saints were not chosen because they were perfect all-rounders. They all had faults, but they also has some outstanding virtue which made people say "God really is in this person".

It's important for us to remember this, because not many of us are good all-rounders either. But we all have some quality through which God can be seen, which is, if you like, our special potential for sainthood.

So whatever your faults, ‘let your light so shine before others’ - and remember you’re a saint too.

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