Why Catholic: The Saints

This past week we celebrated the feast days of the Holy Archangels: Michael, Raphael and Gabriel, as well as St. Jerome, St. Therese of Lisieux (The “Little Flower”), the Holy Guardian Angels, and St. Francis of Assisi.

We have some incredible examples set before us as we dive into this week’s message in our Why Catholic Series: The Saints.

Attainable holiness

Because the Saints are not just far-off unattainable images of holiness: they are the norm of the Catholic life. We often have the hurtful and bad examples of people who are hypocritical or selfish in their practice of the Faith, but the Saints show us what it looks like when someone actually lives what the Catholic Church calls us to: they become glorious!

The example of the Saints also show us that everyone is able to become a Saint by the Grace of God: we have the crotchety old man who struggled with his vices (St. Jerome), the young girl who struggled with anxiety and emotional imbalances (St. Therese) and the young man dedicated to a party lifestyle (St. Francis of Assisi).

Become a tremendous saint

But they became tremendous Saints by allowing the Lord to make them into something more: into the glorious reality of a person transformed by the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus.

The same is true for us: through our Catholic Faith, lived with fidelity and in the midst of our own struggles, God wants to make us into Saints. The first step on that journey might be small, maybe it is just showing up to Mass today, but our parish family is here to support you in becoming who God has created you to be: a great and holy Saint.