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Hi, I'm Edwards 3 and welcome to all things Catholic, where real faith meets real life.

If you had to explain the saints to your non-Catholic friends, how good of a job would

you do?

I think we as Catholics are getting better at saying things like, oh, we don't worship the

saints, we just honor them, we just venerate them.

But I have to be honest, many of my Protestant friends, they would say,

oh, I'll grant you that worship, honored distinction you're trying to make. But man, you

Catholics, you spend a lot of time with the saints. You got all these prayers, all these devotions.

This seems to be getting in the way of our relationship with Jesus. We should just have a personal

relationship with Jesus. But all the saints get in the way of that and complicates things and distracts us from what's most important. And that's worship of God. And think about it. I mean, if there was a Catholic that would go up to your Protestant friend and say, hey, I just did a nine-day novena to St. Therese. And nine days of prayer. And I asked Therese to give me a white rose if I'm supposed to do this with my life and a red rose if I'm supposed to do something else with my life. I mean, just imagine what's going on in that Protestant's head hearing this story. I mean, they're thinking, that's weird. That is so weird. Is Teres the divine florist? And is she, Is she God? Why are you going to her to ask what you're supposed to do with your life? Why don't you go to Jesus for that? I get it. I see where they're coming from. That's a fair question to ask. Similarly, if a Protestant walks into a Catholic church and they see a Catholic kneeling down before a statue, a statue of St. Francis of Is, or St. Joseph or Mary. I mean, they're looking

to that going, that's weird. What's going on here? I mean, just imagine this. They see a Catholic. They go up to the statue of a saint. They light a candle. They fall on their knees. They kneel down before the statue. They bow their head, and they fold their hands, and they say a prayer. How is that not worship?

I mean, this just seems to really be distracting.

We should be bowing down and kneeling down before God, not this statue. You know, you Catholics, you have all these feast days and holy cards and litanies and novenas and medals and statues and stained glass windows all related to the saints. What's going on here? I mean, Catholics know more about the saints than they do

about God's word in Scripture. They seem to spend more time with the saints than they do with God

himself. And again, I get it. These are fair questions, honest, sincere questions, and there's some

great answers. And that's what we're going to take a look at in this week's podcast. So welcome to all

things Catholic. I'm your host, Edward Sree, and so excited as the great solemnity of All Saints

Day is on the horizon here, good time for us to reflect on the important role that they play,

that in God's plan of salvation, he wanted the Saints to play a crucial role in our relationship with him.

And we're going to take a look at how the saints help us to praise God more, to love him more.

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