Even when I don’t get a chance to go to daily Mass, I like to check out the readings for the day (you can find them in our Daily Devotional or on the USCCB website). And something I noticed about this week is that it’s particularly saintly. Every day this week has a different Saint attached to it.
That got me thinking: how much do I really know about the saints? There are over ten thousand canonized Saints in the Church, so there’s no way I could know them all… but do I even know one hundred? I know I’ve written about our call to become Saints and to imitate their holiness – but what about the details of their own lives?
I’ve never picked up the story of a Saint’s life and regretted it. Each of them has an amazing and unique journey to the heart of Christ. It may seem that their lives are all the same tale of loving God and praying constantly, but take a closer look. St. Leo the Great and St. Frances Xavier Cabrini were both born in Italy and both found their vocation in the religious life.
But St. Leo became Pope in 440 and fought heresy throughout Europe. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was better known as Mother Cabrini, and she founded schools and hospitals for the poor in New York City and Chicago. Two very different people with different charisms and different ministries in different millennia, but they were both working to serve Christ.
If you’re thinking you don’t know where to start with all the saints that are out there, start with the ones we remember this week; St. Leo the Great, St. Martin of Tours, St. Josaphat, and St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. Want more? Head to your parish library, a Catholic bookstore – EWTN and New Advent even have great Saint biographies online. Find a story that speaks to you – a Saint you can relate to – and you won’t just have expanded your reading list. You’ll have gained a new patron to pray for you.
Gotta love being Catholic, right?
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