Holiness is our destiny.
That’s right! The Church says that all Christians, in any walk of life, are called to holiness. Holiness is what God created us for, what Jesus invites us to, the purpose for which the Holy Spirit works within us. Yet, what does it mean for ordinary people like us to be holy in the day-to-day? How do we, ordinary Catholics, live “the fullness of Christian life and the perfection of charity?” (Lumen gentium #40)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes our call to holiness in paragraph 2013:
2013 "All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity."65 All are called to holiness: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."66
In order to reach this perfection the faithful should use the strength dealt out to them by Christ's gift, so that . . . doing the will of the Father in everything, they may wholeheartedly devote themselves to the glory of God and to the service of their neighbor. Thus the holiness of the People of God will grow in fruitful abundance, as is clearly shown in the history of the Church through the lives of so many saints.67
(For further insights, you might want to check out what else the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about holiness—it’s available for browsing on the Vatican’s website.)
The saints, who have been recognized by the Church for lives of holiness, can help us to understand how we are called to respond to God’s invitations. The saints are ordinary people who responded in an extraordinary way to God’s love, allowing God to work freely in them and through them. Their ordinariness gives us courage, while their extraordinary response to God’s love inspires us.
When we look closely, we see many similarities in the lives of the saints: their faith, their charity, their sacramental lives, their prayer. But we also notice that each saint has a unique personality with which he or she responded to the circumstances of life. Not only can we learn from their examples, we can also ask the saints to pray for us as our friends and mentors in heaven. We hope thatSaints Alive! will both inspire you and tickle your curiosity to know more about these fascinating people.
Here is a link to a free preview of the chapters on two different saints.
The nature of a collection of the lives of the saints means that, unless the collection is thousands of pages long, we have to leave out a lot more than we can put in. For those who would like to know more about particular saints, we’ve compiled a list of the best websites that we found as we were researching each saint. It is our hope that Saints Alive! will inspire you in how you can live your call to greater union with God.
God bless you!
Sr. Marie Paul Curley & Sr. Mary Lea Hill