Who I was meant to be. . .

Be who you were meant to be and you will set the world on fire. ~~St. Catherine of Sienna 

I read this quote the other day (now I can’t remember where), and for some reason it sent shivers down my spine.

I’m afraid I’ve spent most of my life trying to be someone else. . .someone I thought I should be. . .someone better, more noble, holier.

St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, would tell his priests, “Now, go set the world on fire. . .”

What would it look like if I was truly going to set the world on fire?  Is there any possible way I could do this just by being me?


I often think that to do this, a person must be dynamic, active, almost compulsive in their work load.  Not me, that’s for sure.




Maybe somebody like Mother Teresa.  Now she knew how to start a fire.  And she did this by loving one person at a time, no matter how unlovely they might be. She didn’t do this (at least from what I glean from her writings) by some grand strategic plan. She did it by surrender to each call she heard from the God she loved. She would not compromise what she knew He was calling her to do.  She focused consistently on faithfulness more than success.



And she was, I think, exactly who God meant her to be. This is my prayer for my life.  Not to set the world on fire so people will know my name and think highly of me.  But to spread the fire just a little bit further, lighting my immediate world with the fire of His love which I have so lavishly received.  To kindle this fire even in the darkest of places among the darkest of people.  (Isn’t it in the darkness that we most need fire?)  It still seems incredible to me, though, that the way I am called to do this is by just being me.


Can I set the world on fire the way Mother Teresa did?  Not by a long shot.  But then I’m not called to be Mother Teresa.  I’m only to share the spark of the love I have been given with the people I am given.  And you are too.  When we all do this, refusing to compromise who God calls each of us to be, the whole world will be on fire.