Celebrating the saints; and what we can gain from their example
When it comes to holidays, it seems we jump from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s. But in the process of carving the jack-o-lantern and stuffing the turkey, many of us tend to overlook one very important day known as All Saints’ Day.All Saints’ Day is traditionally celebrated on the first of November; however, taking time to honor and celebrate the saints is something we should do more than one time a year. And guess what? You don’t even have to be Catholic to learn some valuable lessons from those saints that have gone on before us.
Father Ron Aubry, of St. Peter Catholic Church in Millersburg, thinks it’s important for people of all faiths to realize that there are “saints” in every church and every family that should be remembered.
“It’s very important for us to understand that every church has saints,” Aubry said. “Whether your denomination canonizes saints or not, they still exist. Many of us can look in our own families and find some very godly and holy people that we look up to and admire.”
Aubry said looking to the saints for inspiration and example is similar to the way we as a country may recognize certain national heroes.
“It’s very much like honoring or remembering heroes,” he said. “However, we believe the saints in heaven can pray and intercede on our behalf, which is very helpful and comforting.”
Of all papal figures who have canonized saints, the late Pope John Paul II holds the record for canonizing the most. According to Aubry, John Paul II canonized between two and three thousand saints, an extraordinary number.
Aubry said that some saints are perhaps more well-known than others, but all go through the same process of canonization.
“Naturally, St. Peter, which our church is dedicated, was very prominent,” Aubry said. “Also, St. Francis of Assisi is another prominent saint. St. Francis is patron saint of animals, nature, creation, and also founded the Franciscan Order. Other well known saints include St. Nicholas and St. Patrick, although St. Patrick is more legendary.”
To become canonized in the Catholic Church, one must undergo a long process of investigation and not every person considered meets the standard. In fact, there are some names still on the list that date back to the Middle Ages, while other names such as Mother Theresa of Calcutta seem to move through the process more quickly.
“Mother Theresa of Calcutta has not yet been canonized, but she is very close,” Aubry said. “I believe she will reach the status of ‘blessed’ very soon. A very recent person that has been canonized is Father Damien of Molokai. I think that ceremony took place just a couple of weeks ago.”
Aubry is correct. According to a Hawaiian news site, Father Damien did reach sainthood on Oct. 11. Damien was a priest known for his pioneering work with lepers in Hawaii. He was born in 1840 in Belgium and died in 1889 after he became afflicted with leprosy. In one of his last letters he wrote, “My face and my hands are already decomposing, but the good Lord is calling me to keep Easter with Himself.” He died close to Easter on April 15, 1889. Above his grave on Molokai, his friends set a black marble cross with the inscription, “Damien de Veuster, Died a Martyr of Charity.” His body was reburied in Louvain, Belgium in 1936.
The two main areas examined by the Rome-based, “sainthood” decision-making board known as the Congregation for Saints, deals with the holiness of the person’s life and how universally appealing the person was during life.
“In other words, this board considers the way the individual lived his or her life and the standard of holiness they followed,” Aubry said. “It also looks at how appealing the person was universally. This is very important; they tend to select people that large groups all over the world can look up to. Individuals that become saints are normally well-known but some are not. Some performed miracles, some just ministered to the poor and some helped build orphanages, hospitals or schools. There are a large number of priests and nuns that have been canonized, more so than lay people. In fact, Pope John Paul II once said he wished he had been able to canonize more lay people, but that doesn’t always happen.”
When a person is canonized, you can be quite sure they are in heaven and you can also know for certain that they lived a very holy life of servitude and generosity.
Aubry thinks religious people of all ages, especially kids, need people to look up to regardless of their denomination.
“It’s just good to have individuals that we can look up to and learn from their example,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter which denomination they’re from, it’s more important as to what kind of a life they’ve lived and what kind of an impact or influence they’ve made. We all need spiritual heroes.”
Remember not every “saint” may end up with the official title, but they’re no less an inspiration than those that do.