To Be a Saint

Reading Echoing Silence, and I find this question, posed from Robert Lax to Thomas Merton...

What do you want to be, anyway?

"A good Catholic," says Merton. It's a lame answer, he knows. And Lax does not accept it.

You should say... you want to be a saint.

"I can't be that," says Merton. And knows straightaway that this is cowardice. This is to say, "I am satisfied to save my soul, to keep out of mortal sin, but... I do not want to give up my sins and my attachments."

What do you want to be, anyway? I hear You, ancient Friend, ask the same.

Put the brave words in my mouth... "I want to be a saint."