Saints

Saints are holy men and women who lived good lives and loved God. Among their contemporaries, and especially by those who lived after them, saints were known to have had a special relationship with God. Moreover, this relationship with God became visible in how they lived.

How did these people develop a special relationship with God? How did they get to be holy? Simply stated, they were willing to change; they were open to letting God convert them. Every man and woman we call a saint is someone who was not afraid to leave behind the old and take on something new. For some of them this meant letting go even of their physical natural lives; we call these saints martyrs.

When we honor and pray to the saints today, however, we often ask them to help us remain as we are; we ask them to protect us from change. For example:

I pray for restored health, so I can return to living exactly as I am.

I pray to find something, so my life can go on as usual.

I pray for another person, so I don't need to help them any more or put up with them the way they are.

In these cases I'm really asking, "Do something so I don't need to change." Thus I'm asking the saints to do for me the very opposite of what made them holy and saints in the first place.

But why should I expect a holy man or holy woman to protect me from what has the greatest potential for making me holy? How odd that I should ask this! Wouldn't any saint much rather want to help me become holy as they are holy? As God is holy?

Lord, help me be sincere in my honor for your saints. Help me want to be like them (like you). Help me refrain from using the saints to remain as I am now!

© Harcourt Religion Publishers/BROWN-ROA