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Posted: October 5th, 2007 at 2:10am By: Kevin Considine
Roman Catholics don't "make" saints.
Strictly speaking, the church hierarchy can't "make" anyone a saint. The hierarchy can only recognize what the rest of the church already knows about someone: that God has dwelt among us upon his or her shoulders.
And we Catholics don't worship saints either. Instead, we venerate the saints. That is, we recognize that these women and men have been sanctified by God and are part of the eternal communion of the church. When we celebrate the Eucharist, they are there. When we need guidance, they are there. Think of them kind of like great ancestors in the faith who have gone before us and who remain part of the Christian community.
Thankfully, the testimonies of saints' lives give concrete proof to the idea that God already exists in all times and cultures. They remind us that every culture has the ability to carry the image of God and often does so without asking permission. And since their witness is often from the margins of their own society, they remind us that the God of Jesus Christ tends to work where the rest of us don't like to look.
To put it generally, the saints are ordinary people who are in tune with God. They are disciples of Jesus. And two examples are St. Martin de Porres and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.
St. Martin de Porres (1579-1639), of Lima, Peru, was one of the first persons of African descent to be recognized as a saint in the Americas. Because he was black, however, he wasn't canonized until 1962. St. Martin was the child of a Spanish father and a freed slave mother from Panama. He grew up poor with his mother, and due to his mulatto heritage the Peruvian Dominicans would not accept him as a brother. Instead, they accepted him as a voluntary servant to staff the infirmary.
From those meager beginnings St. Martin developed a reputation for healing the sick and ministering to the poor, particularly the natives and the African slaves of Peru. He was known to pray constantly and to exhibit a profound generosity and love of others. After nine years as a volunteer servant, it is said that his Christ-likeness compelled the Dominicans to allow him to profess full vows. The same brothers who at one point would not permit him to be a full Dominican now sought him out for spiritual direction. He called them to conversion, and his love for the poor made God present in a context of great suffering.
In North America, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680), born in what is now upstate New York, is not yet a saint. But she was beatified in 1980 and many hope that she soon will be recognized as the first Native American saint of the United States. Blessed Kateri was born to a Catholic Algonquin mother and a traditional Mohawk father, and when she was 4 years old, her parents and brother all died of smallpox. Blessed Kateri survived, but her struggle with the disease left her scarred for life.
When she was 18, her uncle who had adopted her consented to her request to become a Christian. Sadly, after she was baptized, it is said that she began to become the object of the anger of her own people. So, she eventually departed to a settlement for Christian Native Americans in Canada. Once there, she tirelessly worked teaching children and caring for the elderly and the sick in her ministerial life. She became known for her piety, kindness and Christ-like love in her ministry, and eventually Blessed Kateri felt called to profess a vow of perpetual virginity. She died shortly before her 24th birthday from a serious illness. Catholic and native witnesses to her death testified that shortly after her passing, the scars from her smallpox disappeared and her face looked radiant. Hers was not an easy life, but it was one blessed by God.
St. Martin de Porres and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha each testify to the transforming love of God in their own contexts. Neither was perfect, but each struggled to follow Christ while also being true to their own cultural circumstances.
Like many of the saints, their lives are told in spiritual and theological terms at the expense of the social. That's because many of us, sometimes with good reason, remain wary of recognizing those who were overly social or political. But this also means that great persons such as Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero, who both should be on the short list of soon-to-be saints, are not as of yet. And this is not likely to change until we all begin to value what theologian Edward Schillebeeckx has called "political holiness" in addition to traditional holiness. That's a concept that could provide us all with a new perspective on the saints and the God who chose to dwell among them.
Still, St. Martin de Porres and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha are part of God's ongoing revelation to us. And the church has recognized their witness, if perhaps at a turtle's pace. But this woman and this man bear a sign of similarity with the divine. They call us to follow Jesus and to follow them. By doing so, they teach us to keep an eye open for Christ and an ear open for the Spirit. They remind us all that God is indeed working among us.
And they remind us that God can't be put in a box. God dwells among those with untidy lives in difficult circumstances. And that's good news that none of us could make up.
— — —
Kevin Considine is a graduate student at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, the largest Roman Catholic school of theology and ministry in North America. He is married to a most wonderful woman who keeps him in line and reads his columns to see if they make sense. He and his wife live on the South Side of Chicago. He welcomes comments, feedback or fits of anger and can be reached at {email considkp@yahoo.com}considkp@yahoo.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Kevin Considine.
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Roman Catholics don't "make" saints.
Strictly speaking, the church hierarchy can't "make" anyone a saint. The hierarchy can only recognize what the rest of the church already knows about someone: that God has dwelt among us upon his or her shoulders.
And we Catholics don't worship saints either. Instead, we venerate the saints. That is, we recognize that these women and men have been sanctified by God and are part of the eternal communion of the church. When we celebrate the Eucharist, they are there. When we need guidance, they are there. Think of them kind of like great ancestors in the faith who have gone before us and who remain part of the Christian community.
Thankfully, the testimonies of saints' lives give concrete proof to the idea that God already exists in all times and cultures. They remind us that every culture has the ability to carry the image of God and often does so without asking permission. And since their witness is often from the margins of their own society, they remind us that the God of Jesus Christ tends to work where the rest of us don't like to look.
To put it generally, the saints are ordinary people who are in tune with God. They are disciples of Jesus. And two examples are St. Martin de Porres and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.
St. Martin de Porres (1579-1639), of Lima, Peru, was one of the first persons of African descent to be recognized as a saint in the Americas. Because he was black, however, he wasn't canonized until 1962. St. Martin was the child of a Spanish father and a freed slave mother from Panama. He grew up poor with his mother, and due to his mulatto heritage the Peruvian Dominicans would not accept him as a brother. Instead, they accepted him as a voluntary servant to staff the infirmary.
From those meager beginnings St. Martin developed a reputation for healing the sick and ministering to the poor, particularly the natives and the African slaves of Peru. He was known to pray constantly and to exhibit a profound generosity and love of others. After nine years as a volunteer servant, it is said that his Christ-likeness compelled the Dominicans to allow him to profess full vows. The same brothers who at one point would not permit him to be a full Dominican now sought him out for spiritual direction. He called them to conversion, and his love for the poor made God present in a context of great suffering.
In North America, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680), born in what is now upstate New York, is not yet a saint. But she was beatified in 1980 and many hope that she soon will be recognized as the first Native American saint of the United States. Blessed Kateri was born to a Catholic Algonquin mother and a traditional Mohawk father, and when she was 4 years old, her parents and brother all died of smallpox. Blessed Kateri survived, but her struggle with the disease left her scarred for life.
When she was 18, her uncle who had adopted her consented to her request to become a Christian. Sadly, after she was baptized, it is said that she began to become the object of the anger of her own people. So, she eventually departed to a settlement for Christian Native Americans in Canada. Once there, she tirelessly worked teaching children and caring for the elderly and the sick in her ministerial life. She became known for her piety, kindness and Christ-like love in her ministry, and eventually Blessed Kateri felt called to profess a vow of perpetual virginity. She died shortly before her 24th birthday from a serious illness. Catholic and native witnesses to her death testified that shortly after her passing, the scars from her smallpox disappeared and her face looked radiant. Hers was not an easy life, but it was one blessed by God.
St. Martin de Porres and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha each testify to the transforming love of God in their own contexts. Neither was perfect, but each struggled to follow Christ while also being true to their own cultural circumstances.
Like many of the saints, their lives are told in spiritual and theological terms at the expense of the social. That's because many of us, sometimes with good reason, remain wary of recognizing those who were overly social or political. But this also means that great persons such as Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero, who both should be on the short list of soon-to-be saints, are not as of yet. And this is not likely to change until we all begin to value what theologian Edward Schillebeeckx has called "political holiness" in addition to traditional holiness. That's a concept that could provide us all with a new perspective on the saints and the God who chose to dwell among them.
Still, St. Martin de Porres and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha are part of God's ongoing revelation to us. And the church has recognized their witness, if perhaps at a turtle's pace. But this woman and this man bear a sign of similarity with the divine. They call us to follow Jesus and to follow them. By doing so, they teach us to keep an eye open for Christ and an ear open for the Spirit. They remind us all that God is indeed working among us.
And they remind us that God can't be put in a box. God dwells among those with untidy lives in difficult circumstances. And that's good news that none of us could make up.
— — —
Kevin Considine is a graduate student at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, the largest Roman Catholic school of theology and ministry in North America. He is married to a most wonderful woman who keeps him in line and reads his columns to see if they make sense. He and his wife live on the South Side of Chicago. He welcomes comments, feedback or fits of anger and can be reached at {email considkp@yahoo.com}considkp@yahoo.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Kevin Considine.
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