What does it mean to be “Catholic”? It is more than simply baptism, or Mass. It is more than receiving Christ in the Eucharist. But what is it? Why is it?
If you ask me why I am Catholic, my short answer would be “I am Catholic because I believe in absolute Truth, and I believe that the Catholic Church holds, teaches, and preserves that Truth.” But even that cannot make me a “good” Catholic. I must act on that conviction. I must not only know the Truth, I must also live according to that Truth. A person may know that a certain antidote will save their life, but if they don’t take that antidote, they will still die, regardless of their knowledge.
Enter the saints. They took the Truth and acted upon it. G. K. Chesterton referred to the saints as antidotes in his biography of St. Thomas Aquinas. The saints tend to provide what is lacking in their time (and the times they influence) by exaggeration. We are all called to be saints, it is true. In fact, all who are in the state of grace are saints, as the word saint simple means “holy.” Yet very few are called to be antidotes, I think. We are to take the virtues of the great saints and apply them to our daily, much varied, lives. It would do us great good if we would study the Faith, as did St. Thomas Aquinas – but few are called to devote our entire lives to that study. It would be good for us to do with less, as did St. Frances of Assisi, but few are called to leave everything to be God’s Troubadour.
Read. Read, read, read. If you don’t have time to read, find audiobooks and listen. Did you know you could get The Confessions of Saint Augustine on LibriVox? There are many, many saints, displaying the virtues in so many ways. The Church recognizes the saints not for THEIR benefit, but for OUR benefit. The are examples for us. And they are friends.
