I would like to take a moment to clear up a misconception about the Catholic faith. Today is a very special day in the Catholic Church. This is a day we set aside to honor saints. Notice I said honor, not worship. We have never given worship to any saint. They were at one time very ordinary people just like you and I. But somewhere in there life they gave themselves to God and lived an extraordinary example of what we should be living. Now, yes, we do pray to saints. But what is prayer? Prayer is conversing and having a relationship with someone not of this earth. We all have someone close to us that has died that we still 'talk' to. Someone we feel we can identify with. We turn to special saints, that because of the life they lived, we feel they can understand and identify with what we may be feeling. Then we ask them to intercede for us. Why? Why the need for intercession you may ask. Let me give you an example you may be able to better understand.

My husband, as many of you may know, has been out of a job due to a labor dispute between the union and the company. He was on strike. Now, without going into details (that's a whole post in itself) he has decided to return to work with Northwest Airlines. The method that the company had arranged for those wanting to return was via a 1-800 #. You dial this number and leave your name and number and they are supposed to get back to you. Now my husband did this but did not hear anything for a couple of days. Now he could have called the company directly in Minneapolis to inquire about the status of what was going on, but he felt more comfortable contacting a higher up manager here in Detroit. He had a relationship with this person and this person knew his qualifications. He felt that this person could personally understand and put in a good word for him with the dept. making the decisions on who to call back. This person did not have the authority to re-hire my husband, and my husband knew this and was not going to him asking for this. He was only asking him to intercede on his behalf because he was closer to the ones that do make the decisions.

It’s the same with the Saints.  We feel close to certain Saints because of the life that they led and feel they can identify with what we may be going through and ask them to intercede for us.  We do not expect them in anyway to answer our prayers or perform any great miracles.  We are just asking them to ‘put in a good word’ for us.  Since they have already made it to heaven and are there with our Father we are hoping that they may be able to pull a couple strings for us.

I hope this clears up any misconceptions that any of you may have had about the beliefs of Catholics concerning the Saints.

Have a Happy & Blessed All Saints Day!