The Weakness of Saints is an exampler of God

The Weakness of Saints is an example of God's abundant Glory

The Roman jurisdiction's Pope John Paul II of the Catholic faith has canonized and beatified more people than any Pope in history. Recognizing saints is part of his spiritual strategy to guide the Church through these perilous times. He knows that we need saints, that we need to see the witness of other lives devoted totally to Jesus Christ.

Mgr Peter J. Elliott writes.

What typifies a saint? There is no simple answer to that question. Looking at their lives, we find that there is no standard type or personality. They reflect the rich variety that makes up the People of God. Even official categories do not hold fast. Literal martyrs are matched by spiritual martyrs. Great teachers, Doctors of the Church, are matched by others who evangelized just by the way they lived.

One common factor may be discerned. All the men and women recognized as saints depended on grace. Certainly they strove hard to grow in holiness, but they knew that God’s gift of grace matters much more than our human efforts.

Christian saints are not examples of self-help projects. They contradict a high achiever mind set. They proclaim that human weakness can be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit, the life-giver who justifies and sanctifies us. They invert a proud tendency to ascribe success to our efforts. They proclaim that the glory should be given to God. They are humbly penitent, radically focused on God.

In this domain of grace, every saint is Eucharistic. Yet there are specific saints who stand out in this regard, such as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and St Peter Julian Eymard. The Year of the Eucharist 2004-2005 invites us to focus on saints who showed special devotion to the Mass and Eucharistic adoration.

Saints exemplify the grace of the three theological virtues: faith, hope and love. They are people of faith, faithful to Jesus Christ, faithful to his teaching Church. They are people of hope, waiting and watching for the Kingdom – and a sense of humor is essential here. No one can be canonized who lacks joy. Above all, they are the masterpieces of divine love, afire with the love of the Spirit, hence open to others.

Nevertheless, saints may be mistaken in their opinions and attitudes. Ann Catherine Emmerich was recently beatified because of her heroic virtue amidst suffering, not primarily because of her private revelations, which are reflected in The Passion of the Christ. No one is bound to accept these revelations, even granted her undoubted sanctity. And this applies to all canonized saints.

We may best regard the canonized saints as Christians selected for the Church’s Brownlow Medal, the best and fairest players. But on All Saints day we also celebrate countless ‘unsung saints.’ Known to God alone, perhaps revered in a circle of family and friends, they have never been officially ‘raised to the altar.’ But these are the people we stop praying for because we cannot help praying to them. A woman in my own parish suffered physical, emotional and family trials, but she persevered, and within days of her death favors were granted through her intercession.

Perhaps the greatest teaching of the Second Vatican Council was the universal call to holiness, that we are all called to be saints. This rests on the holiness of the Church. The New Testament describes members of the Church as ‘holy ones’ or saints. If we respond to the call to holiness, we never do this alone, but as members of the Body of Christ, surrounded and urged on by ‘a great cloud of witnesses’ whose lives inspire and encourage us on the journey forward to the Kingdom.