The Glories of the Saints

In a time when sincerity and goodness can often be fleeting, the stories of our predecessors in faith bring me great comfort. The give me hope because of their witness and their testimony.

But, what is it that makes a saint? A saint is someone who is, for all intents and purposes, with God. The glorious thing is that any one of us has the chance to become a saint. Not just in how we live, but (as shown in the Parable of the Workers) in our last moments. St. Joseph Cafasso, one of my favorite saints, was known to give Last Rites and Holy Communion to prisoners condemned to die. After their executions he would say "made a good confession and are truly saints."

And there certainly are saints with some stories! Take St. Olga for example. Before she converted to Christianity she had 5,000 people killed out of revenge for her husband's murder. The story goes:

"Now Olga gave to each soldier in her army a pigeon or a sparrow, and ordered them to attach by thread to each pigeon and sparrow a piece of sulfur bound with small pieces of cloth. When night fell, Olga bade her soldiers release the pigeons and the sparrows. So the birds flew to their nests, the pigeons to the cotes, and the sparrows under the eaves. The dove-cotes, the coops, the porches, and the haymows were set on fire. There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught on fire at once. The people fled from the city, and Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them. Thus she took the city and burned it, and captured the elders of the city. Some of the other captives she killed, while some she gave to others as slaves to her followers. The remnant she left to pay tribute."

That's pretty mean. But I find comfort in the fact that regardless of our past we have great potential for the future. And the beauty of the saints is that, at least for me, they are not confined to one particular branch of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I venerate saints of both the East and the West. This is not always easy! Some of the saints on each side were particularly cruel to other Christians (either Orthodox or Catholic). But there is great solace in the fact that they were nurtured by the same Creeds, the Eucharist, the care of the Blessed Virgin, and so many other essential parts of our faith.

Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco is one of my particular favorites among the Orthodox. His life is the very example of an outstanding missionary. I firmly believe that he intercedes for me in Heaven, because I so hope that the walls that divide us don't reach to heaven.

The saints will lead us towards true unity. May they intercede for us all and may we all become saints--proclaimed and not.