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This week, we get to celebrate two feast days that are near and dear to us here at the Quad-Parishes: St. Patrick and St. Joseph. The Catholic Church has an amazing calendar in which we get to celebrate people who have lived lives of great faith. It can be easy to forget that the people that our churches are named after were once normal humans just like us. They had fun, they messed up, and above all, they loved Christ. The Saints aren’t people who lived perfectly and lived without sin. Saints are just people who when they died, went to heaven.

There are a lot of people who accuse Catholics of worshipping the saints. Why would we pray to them if we can just pray to Jesus directly? Imagine this: you are holding a pizza fundraiser and you need some pizza ovens for the event to
be successful. You know that a friend of a friend has a pizza oven. Instead of going right to the friend of a friend who you don’t know that well, you go to your friend and ask them to go to their friend to request borrowing the pizza oven. Your friend knows their friend better than you because they have spent more time with them and they know how to ask for things from this person and how to hear their response. The same is true with the saints. The saints have been spending their eternity with Jesus. They know Him better than we ever could while we are here on earth. Because they lived lives similar to ours, they can understand our needs and desires and present them to Jesus for us.

So how do we find our saint friends? I say, “let the saints choose you.” Start by researching some saints. Look up saints associated with one of your passions. Look up saints associated with your struggles. Then let God show you who He wants to be your new friends. Then learn about them and start to pray to them. Certain ones will start to stick out. When I was a sophomore in high school, having to choose my confirmation name, I picked a saint I knew little about that just “felt right”. Little did I know that 5 years later, I would work at a camp named after her. I didn’t choose St. Kateri, St. Kateri chose me. I invite you, as we approach the feast days of St. Patrick and St. Joseph to really try and find a saint or two or three that could help you in life. After all, who better to teach us how to become saints ourselves?!

Abby