Who are Saints?
St Paul sent one of his letters (now part of the New Testament) to 'to the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus' Ephesians 1:1. They were still alive. In that way, all believers in Christ Jesus who are faithful to Him, are 'saints'. We are all called to be 'saints' even though most of us won't be formally and publicly recognized as Saints. Still, there are many Saints canonized every year; the general and non-Catholic public only hears about those who are already well-known (such as Mother Theresa and John Paul II).
The Church does not 'make' a Saint but recognizes the person as a Saint. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, 'But by canonizing some of the faithful, i.e. by solemnly proclaiming that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God's grace, the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within him or her and sustains the hope of believers by proposing the Saints as models and intercessors." Catechism of the Catholic Church 828.
In other words, the Saints are models for us to follow and also intercessors - people we can ask to pray for us, just as we ask our friends on earth to pray for us.
God's Friends and Servants
The Saints are considered God’s friends and servants and they are believed to reign with God in heaven. Their supernatural gifts have been given to them only by God and therefore they are honoured and given reverence (Latin, dulia). The Virgin Mary is given a higher form of reverence (Latin, hyperdulia) because she is the mother of Jesus.
The Catholic Church believes that worship (Latin, latria) should be given to God alone. Of course, Jesus is believed to be God, in the Nicene Creed, “true God and true man”, and therefore he is also worshipped. The saints, martyrs and even the Virgin Mary are not worshipped as they are not divine beings.
There is of course, “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (I Timothy 2:5) but the Saints are intercessors (prayer partners) and advocates (Rev 5:8, Rev 8:3,4). The Church does teach that you can pray directly to Jesus for healing. It does not teach that Mary and the Saints will convince Jesus to answer your prayer when He doesn't really want to! (Although some Catholics seem to think this, misreading the story of Jesus' first miracle at Cana.)
The Saints serve as models for those of us who are still alive. Some Saints won't mean much to us personally, but the stories of others will touch our hearts.
Every Sunday, Catholics say the Apostle's Creed or the Nicene Creed during the Mass. They say, "I believe in the communion of saints". The Church teaches that the Mystical Church includes: 1. The Church Militant (Christians on earth) 2. The Church Suffering (Christians in purgatory)[1] and 3. The Church Triumphant (those in heaven).
Beatification and Canonization
A beatified person is known as "Blessed......” and a canonized person is known as “Saint......”. Usually, someone is beatified first and later, if the further conditions are met (two miracles), that person is canonized.
The words used in the actual canonization are: “In honour of ... we decree and define that Blessed .... is a Saint, and we inscribe his/her name in the catalogue of saints, and order that his memory be devoutly and piously celebrated on the ... day ..., his feast.” The feast day of a saint is commonly celebrated on the anniversary of his or her death.
Procedure for Beatification and Canonization
In recent times there are strict regulations about the investigation into the person's life for the cause of sainthood. The person’s life is examined for reputation, for sanctity and for miracles that have occurred after his or her death. If the person has written diaries or books, these are examined to see if there is anything contrary to faith and morals in the writings.
Mother Theresa's journey to canonization was very fast (some said she was 'fast-tracked' because so many asked for her to be made a Saint). And yet, it was 19 years after she died that her canonization took place! All her writings, including many private letters, were examined during that time.
The miracles attributed to the intercession of Mother Theresa were the curing of cancer in a Christian Indian woman, Monica Besra and the healing of brain abscesses in Brazilian man, Marcilio Andrino.
Cases of reported miracles are examined by the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Causes of Saints and a committee of medical specialists. If it can be shown the recovery fell outside the laws of nature with no scientific explanation, it is said to pass the test to be a miracle.
If there are eyewitnesses to the miracles, they are examined. In the case of martyrs, there must be proof of the martyrdom.
When the Church was investigating miracles attributed to the intercession of Marguerite D'Youville, a French Canadian woman who began the Order of the the Sisters of Charity, they contacted Dr Jacalyn Duffin, a haematologist. They gave her slides of blood cells from a person who had leukemia. She did not know the background of the case and identified that later slides from the same patient were free from leukemia.
Dr Duffin later looked into other cases and was so intrigued with the material she found in the Vatican Archives that she investigated hundreds of other stories of miracles. "To admit that as a nonbeliever, you don't have to claim that it was a supernatural entity that did it," Duffin said, "You have to admit some humility and accept that there are other things that science cannot explain."
Sources
Catechism of the Catholic Church. New York and Toronto: Doubleday Publishing Group Inc. 1995.
Duffin, Jacalyn Pondering Miracles - Medical and Religious.
Website of the Catholic Encyclopedia/New Advent accessed January 15, 2011.
Gjelten, Tom. How the Catholic Church Documented Mother Teresa's Two Miracles. http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/08/31/491937448/how-the-catholic-church-documented-mother-teresas-two-miracles accessed September 6, 2016.
When the Church was investigating miracles attributed to the intercession of Marguerite D'Youville, a French Canadian woman who began the Order of the the Sisters of Charity, they contacted Dr Jacalyn Duffin, a haematologist. They gave her slides of blood cells from a person who had leukemia. She did not know the background of the case and identified that later slides from the same patient were free from leukemia.
Dr Duffin later looked into other cases and was so intrigued with the material she found in the Vatican Archives that she investigated hundreds of other stories of miracles. "To admit that as a nonbeliever, you don't have to claim that it was a supernatural entity that did it," Duffin said, "You have to admit some humility and accept that there are other things that science cannot explain."
Sources
Catechism of the Catholic Church. New York and Toronto: Doubleday Publishing Group Inc. 1995.
Duffin, Jacalyn Pondering Miracles - Medical and Religious.
Website of the Catholic Encyclopedia/New Advent accessed January 15, 2011.
Gjelten, Tom. How the Catholic Church Documented Mother Teresa's Two Miracles. http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/08/31/491937448/how-the-catholic-church-documented-mother-teresas-two-miracles accessed September 6, 2016.
[1] Purgatory is another topic. Suffice it to say that it is a place of cleansing (or purging) and everyone in purgatory will eventually be in heaven. It is not hell where those who do not believe in God or in Jesus have chosen to go.
[2] Gjelten, Tom. www.npr.org "How the Catholic Church Documented Mother Teresa's Two Miracles." August 31, 2016.
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