Saints among us...

It's a common Catholic tradition that everyone has a patron saint, usually the saint who is recognized on his or her birthday. When people ask me who my patron is, I love the looks on their faces when I laugh and say, "All of them!"

Yesterday, I celebrated my 20th birthday on the Solemnity of All Saints, a holy day in the Church's calendar. This means that I technically have every single person in heaven as personal advocates. Not too shabby!

So many people are under the impression that saints are these incredibly holy people that lived sinless lives. Even I struggle with that at times, and I was raised in the Church. Let's set the record straight right now, though: saints aren't perfect. Far from. If God had desired a bunch of perfect robots, He would have never created us with free will.

How would you react if I said that among our list of recognized saints, there are repentant murderers, prostitutes, thieves and rapists? St. Paul (who wrote many of the letters in the New Testament) personally tortured and oversaw the murder of many Christian martyrs; St. Francis of Assissi was an aristocrat known for his love of liquor and partying; St. Augustine struggled with lust, and the term "ladies' man" is a bit of an understatement here--he even fathered a child out of wedlock. One of the first saints we informally recognize is Dismas, the thief who was crucified with Jesus and begged for His forgiveness. There is a whole book of these stories called Saints Behaving Badly. It's a lot of fun, so check it out.

Saints aren't just those that the Church recognizes publicly for some heroic deed. With every decision we make to do good for someone else or avoid temptation, we are a little bit closer to heaven and sainthood. So many of the saints are ordinary, and that's beautiful. When we receive the Sacrament of Confirmation and become fully initiated members of the Church, we often take the name of a saint who we want to make our role model. My Confirmation saint is Maria Goretti, a 12-year-old girl from a small town in Italy who was stabbed 14 times after refusing to have sex with her father's apprentice. The apprentice (who, after a vision of Maria from prison years later, repented) said that Maria refused because she wanted to protect him from sin. Two days later, on her deathbed, she forgave him, telling her mother that she wanted him to join her in heaven someday. It was this instant, unprompted forgiveness and commitment to purity from such a young girl that inspired me to choose her when I was confirmed at 13.

Just as we ask our friends and family to pray for us, we believe that those in heaven (including Mary) continue to love and care about those of us still alive, and are always praying to God for our needs. In essence, they are our friends and allies that have already reached the goal we on earth still strive for. In great or small ways, they are our success stories. Armed with that knowledge, we can be assured that we're never alone in the journey. I think that's pretty awesome.

Max Kolbe (patron of journalists), pray for me!