Why Honor the Saints?
All Things Catholic with Dr. Edward Sri
Ascension
5 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2017
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“Why do you Catholics give so much attention to the saints? Shouldn’t we just focus on God?”
Indeed, Catholic devotion to the saints is quite puzzling to some Christians. The whole idea of kneeling before a statue of Mary, doing a nine-day novena to St. Therese or asking St. Anthony to help you find your lost keys seems scandalous. After all, these are just human beings who died a long time ago—they’re not God!
When Catholics honor the saints, however, we are simply recognizing the great things God has done in their lives and celebrating it. This in no way takes away from the attention and praise we should give to God. In fact, we give God more praise when we acknowledge his achievements in the saints.
Indeed, Catholic devotion to the saints is all about Jesus. The greatest work God accomplishes in the universe is taking weak, fallen human beings and transforming them into holy men and women of God. God is the divine artist and the saints are his most magnificent masterpieces. So if you want to love God with all your heart and give God more praise, then take time to recognize his masterpieces and honor the saints.
Show Notes
For more on catholic devotion to the saints, including apologetics arguments and Scriptural support for this, see Edward Sri’s book Love Unveiled--The Catholic Faith Explained (Ignatius Press).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Edward Sree, and welcome to all things Catholic Catholic where real faith meets real life. |
| 0:19.3 | In this week the Catholic Church is celebrating one of my favorite feast days in all the year. |
| 0:24.6 | It's the solemnity of all the Saints. |
| 0:27.6 | All Saints Day this week. |
| 0:29.2 | And so this week, we want to give special attention to the Saints. two things that we can do this week. |
| 0:34.4 | One is of course to honor the Saints to recognize them that these are the men and women who |
| 0:38.7 | said yes to Jesus cooperated with God's gift of salvation, his grace in their lives, and they're up in heaven |
| 0:45.9 | now and worshiping God around his throne. |
| 0:48.6 | And so we honor and remember the Saints, but here's the second thing we need to do and we shouldn't |
| 0:52.3 | forget this you know I |
| 0:53.5 | think sometimes we as Catholics can put the Saints almost on too high of a |
| 0:58.2 | pedestal I mean we're supposed to honor them of course and and and venerate |
| 1:02.2 | them but we could forget that they were human. They were like us and |
| 1:06.6 | struggled with sin and temptation and faced many trials and sufferings in life and moments of |
| 1:12.0 | discernment, moments of many difficulties, and we can relate to them. |
| 1:17.0 | And they stand as a great sign of encouragement for all of us because if God could take them these men and women who are |
| 1:25.2 | fallen and weak like us and transform them by his Holy Spirit and conform them to |
| 1:30.4 | his son and make them perfect if God could do that in St. Teresa and St. Augustine, |
| 1:38.0 | he could do it in our lives as well. And that's encouraging and comforting for us. |
| 1:43.0 | So that's part of why we celebrate All Saints Day, to honor the Saints, but also to remember |
| 1:47.7 | them as a sign of what God wants to do in our lives, if we're faithful. Now Now I've got to be honest with you though |
| 1:54.5 | not all Christians would be so excited like I am about All Saints Day. |
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