A few months ago, I purchased a small chalkboard sandwich sign at a second-hand store, with the idea to use it to highlight the saint of the day for the whole family. I placed it on a table in our entryway, along with a large, illustrated copy of Butler’s Lives of the Saints. Now, not only just family members benefit (hopefully) every time they pass by the table and are reminded of the goal of sainthood, but anyone who comes to visit can see what we hold dear as a family. I’ve also discovered that a well-placed candy dish helps to promote lingering and pondering the saint of the day.
Why does the Church give us saint days? Not only do saints serve as models of virtue and offer inspiration, but their stories and sainthood serve as daily reminders of why each of us is on this earth. Fall, with all its great saint days, is a great time to focus in on the universal call to sainthood.
October and November seem especially filled with some showstopper saints. October has already marked St. Therese the Little Flower, St. Francis of Assisi, Our Lady of the Rosary, and St. Teresa of Avila. Still to come this month are St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (17th-century nun responsible for the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus) on Oct. 17, St. Luke the Evangelist on Oct. 18, St. John Paul II on the Oct. 22, the Apostles Sts. Jude and Simon on Oct. 28, and, of course, All Hallows’ Eve on Oct. 31.
That brings us to November, which kicks off with the great feast of All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1, followed by All Souls’ Day on Nov. 2. These two days really define why we celebrate saint days in the first place. The first, All Saints’, draws our attention to the way life should be lived, with attention to holiness and virtue, which is not to be confused with the perfection that comes only when we reach heaven. The Church notes this day as a major feast because we are celebrating those who made it to heaven or, as St. Paul put it, the ones who fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith (2 Tim 4:7). The saints, many of whom are unnamed common men and women, have fulfilled the purpose of every Christian, to live in the presence of God for all eternity.
After celebrating the ones who have “made it,” the following day, on the Feast of All Souls, we focus on praying for the ones who have died but have yet to make it to heaven. Of course, this is a special day to remember the deceased members of one’s own family or circle of friends, but the broader purpose is to pray for all deceased members of the Church, that they have eternal rest. This is also the perfect time to teach children about Catholic teaching on purgatory. For a good primer on the topic, check out Father Mike Schmitz’s short YouTube video What you should know about Purgatory.
Catholicexchange.com also has a helpful synopsis on why it is important to pray for the souls in purgatory: “As believers on earth, we can pray to our brethren who are in heaven or Purgatory. Those in Purgatory benefit from our prayers, and we from theirs. They cannot pray for themselves, so we need to remember to pray for them. And we can ask those in Purgatory and those in heaven to pray for us while we are on our earthly pilgrimage with our destination being heaven.”
With so many distractions and demands on our time and attention, we need constant reminders of our call to sainthood. If we are not goal-oriented, it’s just too easy to get lost in the mundane details of life. There are so many saint stories with which we can identify – there isn’t one saint in all of Church history who didn’t overcome obstacles and experience the same emotions we do. Some of the great saints coming up in November – St. Martin de Porres on Nov. 3, St. Charles Borromeo on Nov. 4, St. Gertrude the Great on Nov. 16, St. Elizabeth of Hungary on Nov. 17, St. Cecilia on Nov. 22, and St. Andrew the Apostle on Nov. 30 – give us great opportunities to pause and take stock of our own sainthood journey. So take some time this season to pass around the candy dish and share a saint story with your family.
Lazzuri writes from her home in Nova Scotia, where she lives with her husband, six children, and her mom. She can be reached at clarelazzuri@gmail.com.
