You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Tuesday, November 6, 2018. This week on the Catholic Sprouts

podcast, we are talking about saints. Yesterday we talked about what it means to be a saint,

and I reminded you that we are all called to be saints. Today we are going to talk

about the process of actually being named a saint. This is a very long, detailed, serious process

called canonization. Now before I explain this, I want you to know that the church does not

make someone a saint. Through this whole process, we are simply investigating so that we can

affirm and proclaim what God has already done. We're simply investigating to find clues to see if this

person is genuinely in heaven with God. The church's proclamation does not change anything.

It simply acknowledges what God has already done. So the canonization process

starts after a saint has died. In fact, it can happen many, many, many years after a saint

has died or it can start immediately after a saint has died. The first thing that happens is that a council

looks at the life of this person and they evaluate it for what they call heroic virtue.

Did this person bravely, strongly, boldly live out the true faith of the Catholic Church. If they decide that yes, this person did

display heroic virtue, then the person receives the title of venerable, with simply means that

this is a good person's life to look at and imitate. It does not yet proclaim that they are a saint.

After this process, another council with lots of people and lots of investigation begins to look

further into this person's life. In fact, they are looking more at what this person has done after they died. In order to become a saint,

you need to have two miracles attributed to you after you died. These miracles need to have happened

as a result of a person praying directly to ask for your help.

Oftentimes miracles are healings. You ask for a saint's intercession to come and miraculously heal someone where there appeared to be no hope of healing.

If we can find one miracle that can be attributed to a person, then they are elevated to the status of blessed,

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