When the saints go marching in

Posted by admin on Mar 10, 2011 in Issues & Ideas | 0 comments

Who are the Saints? There are over 10,000 of them, each with uniquely individual stories and messages.
One example is St. Monica, a Christian who was arranged to be married to a cruel North African official. She lived a challenging life with her husband, but constantly prayed for his and their children’s conversion. Her prayers worked, and today, many of us should be very familiar with the name of her eldest son: St. Augustine. Augustine is famous for writing a great number of works, including the theological-political City of God, which has dramatically shaped all of Western Civilization.
The word “Saint” comes from the Latin word sanctus, meaning “holy.” The early church used the phrase to describe individuals who were made Holy by the power of God, whether here on Earth or by their passing into Heaven. Whether Protestant, Catholic, or of other religious belief the Saints are definitely people to admire for the work they have done here on earth.
Today, the definition is dramatically different depending on the doctrine employed. Both the Catholic and the Protestant traditions state that a saint is anyone who has entered into Heaven and has been cleansed of sin by God’s grace.
However, the Catholic Church also has canonization, a process that enables the Church to recognize select individuals that have led lives utterly devoted to God. Saints are not meant to be worshipped in the same way as God; neither does declaring someone a Saint here on Earth supersede the authority of Heaven. Canonization allows the Church to bear witness to lives lived entirely for God and give followers of Christ a chance to imitate men and women who have given their livelihoods over to God.
Another Saint was Saint Bernadette, who suffered from cholera, tuberculosis of the lung, asthma, and many other infirmaries. She is best known for claiming to have seen the apparition in Lourdes, France, known as Our Lady of Lourdes, on several occasions. Her visions went under canonical investigation and while they were never proved, they were deemed “worthy of belief” by the church. St. Bernadette is now the patron saint of Lourdes and of the infirm.
To become patrons over places, statuses, and abstract concepts means the Saint acts as an intercessor. For example, Saint Francis of Assisi, who spent a great deal of his life in the outdoors, is the patron saint of animals and ecology. If you need to pray about a Biology midterm or that your sick cat will get better, you can ask St. Francis to help you.
Prayers are offered to the Saints so they can also pray to God on our behalf, not so they can answer the prayer themselves. It’s essentially like asking someone to pray for you when you go through a difficult time, only you can ask people who have passed on and now reside in glory with God. In the Protestant tradition, it is still a complicated concept to address, yet the Saints can be looked to as people who tirelessly devoted their lives and gave up a great deal for the service of God, which is something worth modelling.