Happy St. Nicholas Day!

December 6th is the day the Church celebrates the life of St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra. He is the patron saint of sailors and probably more obviously children. This memorial is one we've celebrated since I was little receiving gifts in our stockings. Today was no different.

The Catholic tradition of honoring the lives of Saints is sometimes misunderstood. A saint according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church is the "holy one" who leads a life in union with God through the grace of Christ and receives the reward of eternal life. The Church is called the communion of saints, of the holy ones. You can see in this definition that there are two distinct uses then for the term saint. Those as members of the Church, faithful holy ones. And those that the Church calls canonized [this is really a fancy word for being on the list] saints. These deceased men and women have been declared by the Church as a proposed model and intercessor to the Christian faithful. They are given the title saint based on the fact that the person lived a life of heroic virtue or remained faithful to God through martyrdom.

Basically, the Church is willing to say that there are certain people that are with God in Heaven. This doesn't happen instantly or without trial [literally- each candidate for sainthood is put on trial and their holiness must be proven]. And that is not to say that there are certainly many other beloved dead that are saints that perhaps will never be declared worldwide but nonetheless are models of faith and great intercessors. However, we Christians can certainly use models of faith to aid us in our lives and certainly are in need of all the prayer we can get.

The saints in heaven are not dead. Jesus said, "Have you not read 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob?' He is not the God of the dead but of the living." Mt. 22:31-32 Those who die in Christ are now alive in Christ in Heaven. [Related verses: Mk 9:4, Lk 23:43, Rev. 6:9-11, I Cor. 12:12-27; Heb. 12:1, 12:22-24] This is why we ask for the prayers of the saints. In the same way we would ask any brother or sister in Christ to pray for us.


May we be inspired by the example of St. Nicholas and All Saints. May we learn to proclaim what they believed and put their teaching into action. St. Nicholas, pray for us!