Mother Teresa was no saint to her critics. Or so says the CNN article I read today about her upcoming canonization.
So, let me preface this by saying that I really like CNN and its affiliates. You might even call me a liberal, I suppose. And the article had an attention-grabbing headline because, well, that is the entire job of a headline. It went on to give an interesting account of a controversy surrounding the canonization of Mother Teresa. Some say that the homes she organized to treat the dying were in horrible condition and that the nuns who run them refused to upgrade because Jesus would not want that. Others vehemently deny those claims. There are rumors that she attempted to convert faithful Hindus to Christianity. This is also flatly denied by others. Some people are upset that she was anti-abortion. Yes, most Catholics are.
In other words, the article is a pretty unbiased look at the work of Mother Teresa. It offers quotes from those who are critical of her work, followed by quotes of her supporters. Exactly like an unbiased news article is supposed to do.
All that wasn’t actually what grabbed my attention, though. What caught my eye is the evidence throughout the article that people don’t really get this whole canonization and saint thing. The headline seems to imply that to be a saint is to be considered perfect, for example. The article also offers a neat graphic on how to become a saint. Informative, but misleading because of the lower-case “s” they use on the word “saint”.
So please, allow me to clarify.
How to become a saint
Be a person who dies and goes to Heaven.
Christians will be quick to tell you that no one is good enough to go to Heaven on their own. None of us is perfect. We believe that just as Jews offered sacrifices for atonement of their own sins for thousands of years, our sins still require atonement for us to be presentable to God. As the ultimate sacrifice to end all sacrifices, we believe that God came to Earth as a human (that’s who we call the Son: Jesus), allowed Himself to be sacrificed, then beat even death by rising from the dead. We believe that sacrifice was sufficient to wash away the sins of all mankind past, present, and future.
So, Christians believe that Heaven is opened up to us because of the sacrifice of Jesus. That is our unifying, fundamental belief. Denominations differ in opinion on whether it’s necessary to recognize and accept that fact before you die or whether people will have the opportunity to accept that fact after they die, and that’s not the point of this blog post. The point of this is how to become a saint, and Christians believe that anyone who dies and goes to Heaven is a saint.
(Catholics, being Christians, also believe this.)
How to become a Saint
Ah, now this is more complicated!
A saint is anyone in Heaven. A Saint is someone who has been bestowed with an official title. “Saint” with a capital S is a title, just like Mr. or Mrs. or Dr.
There are far more saints than there are Saints. In other words, there are many more people enjoying Heaven for all eternity than will ever be recognized here on Earth. The people who get canonized are getting an official recognition, if you will, that they are in Heaven right now.
Why would you care about getting this recognition on Earth if you’re already in Heaven? You probably don’t. For goodness sake, why would you?? But this is a way for those of us who haven’t died yet to honor people we admire.
The Catholic Church does not automatically bestow the title “Saint” on every Christian who dies. The reason is that we have no idea, really, what’s going on in someone’s heart. You may be a person who did everything perfectly in life, never missed a church service, volunteered at the food bank every week, but deep down hated others and had contempt for God and no one knew it. Conversely, you may be someone that doesn’t show up on the church radar and people assume you’re a bit lukewarm about faith, but you actually spend all day in loving prayer for the people around you and give away all your money to the poor in secret. We just never really know, looking at one another, who is sincere and will be in Heaven and who isn’t and won’t.
Thus comes this whole process of canonization. The people who have died and are considered for canonization are people that someone or some group have people have brought to the attention of the Catholic Church and said “Hey, I really think this person was sincere and is probably in Heaven right now. I think we should pay them tribute and make their lives known so they can be an inspiration to others.” First, the Church examines the person’s life. If you’re faking your sincerity, after all, it’ll generally become clear at some point. If the Church decided that the person really did live an incredibly virtuous life and was likely sincere in their faith and actions, then they start looking for posthumous miracles attributed to that person.
Here is where a lot of Protestants go “Whaaaat??” Stick with me here. Catholics believe that we can ask anyone, living or dead, to pray for us. Just like I can ask a friend at church to remember me in her prayers, I can ask a loved one who died to pray for me to God. The mindset is: they’re right there in Heaven with Him. They’re not being distracted by the things of this world anymore. They literally have all of eternity now to worship God and pray for those of us still on Earth. So, we will ask saints (canonized or not) to pray, or intercede for us. This is what we are doing when we pray to saints.
Catholics are never, ever to worship saints (equate them to God). We may praise them, just as I praise a friend when they do something well. We may ask them to pray for us. But we do not worship them.
Like I said, once the consideration for Sainthood goes this far, the next step is to have two miracles attributed to the person after their death. In other words, someone asks the saint to please intercede and ask God to grant some type of favor. If the favor is granted and no non-miraculous explanation can be offered, it is considered a miracle and thus further evidence that yes, the person really was sincere during his/her life and is now in Heaven.
After two miracles have been confirmed and attributed to the intercessory prayers of the saint in question, the Church will officially bestow on the person the title of Saint, and begins to call the saint “Saint.”
The main points
In summary, here is what a Saint is not:
I wrote this specifically for my non-Catholic friends and family who might have wondered about us and our Saints. Even if you’re not a Catholic or even if you’re not a believer at all, the lives of many of the Saints are pretty fascinating to research. I recommend starting with soon-to-be Saint Teresa of Calcutta. The book Come Be My Light is a collection of letters she wrote to her confessors over her lifetime and I thought it was amazing. It was made into a move called The Letters recently that I have yet to see but about which I have heard good reviews.
Enjoy!
So, let me preface this by saying that I really like CNN and its affiliates. You might even call me a liberal, I suppose. And the article had an attention-grabbing headline because, well, that is the entire job of a headline. It went on to give an interesting account of a controversy surrounding the canonization of Mother Teresa. Some say that the homes she organized to treat the dying were in horrible condition and that the nuns who run them refused to upgrade because Jesus would not want that. Others vehemently deny those claims. There are rumors that she attempted to convert faithful Hindus to Christianity. This is also flatly denied by others. Some people are upset that she was anti-abortion. Yes, most Catholics are.
In other words, the article is a pretty unbiased look at the work of Mother Teresa. It offers quotes from those who are critical of her work, followed by quotes of her supporters. Exactly like an unbiased news article is supposed to do.
All that wasn’t actually what grabbed my attention, though. What caught my eye is the evidence throughout the article that people don’t really get this whole canonization and saint thing. The headline seems to imply that to be a saint is to be considered perfect, for example. The article also offers a neat graphic on how to become a saint. Informative, but misleading because of the lower-case “s” they use on the word “saint”.
So please, allow me to clarify.
How to become a saint
Be a person who dies and goes to Heaven.
Christians will be quick to tell you that no one is good enough to go to Heaven on their own. None of us is perfect. We believe that just as Jews offered sacrifices for atonement of their own sins for thousands of years, our sins still require atonement for us to be presentable to God. As the ultimate sacrifice to end all sacrifices, we believe that God came to Earth as a human (that’s who we call the Son: Jesus), allowed Himself to be sacrificed, then beat even death by rising from the dead. We believe that sacrifice was sufficient to wash away the sins of all mankind past, present, and future.
So, Christians believe that Heaven is opened up to us because of the sacrifice of Jesus. That is our unifying, fundamental belief. Denominations differ in opinion on whether it’s necessary to recognize and accept that fact before you die or whether people will have the opportunity to accept that fact after they die, and that’s not the point of this blog post. The point of this is how to become a saint, and Christians believe that anyone who dies and goes to Heaven is a saint.
(Catholics, being Christians, also believe this.)
How to become a Saint
Ah, now this is more complicated!
A saint is anyone in Heaven. A Saint is someone who has been bestowed with an official title. “Saint” with a capital S is a title, just like Mr. or Mrs. or Dr.
There are far more saints than there are Saints. In other words, there are many more people enjoying Heaven for all eternity than will ever be recognized here on Earth. The people who get canonized are getting an official recognition, if you will, that they are in Heaven right now.
Why would you care about getting this recognition on Earth if you’re already in Heaven? You probably don’t. For goodness sake, why would you?? But this is a way for those of us who haven’t died yet to honor people we admire.
The Catholic Church does not automatically bestow the title “Saint” on every Christian who dies. The reason is that we have no idea, really, what’s going on in someone’s heart. You may be a person who did everything perfectly in life, never missed a church service, volunteered at the food bank every week, but deep down hated others and had contempt for God and no one knew it. Conversely, you may be someone that doesn’t show up on the church radar and people assume you’re a bit lukewarm about faith, but you actually spend all day in loving prayer for the people around you and give away all your money to the poor in secret. We just never really know, looking at one another, who is sincere and will be in Heaven and who isn’t and won’t.
Thus comes this whole process of canonization. The people who have died and are considered for canonization are people that someone or some group have people have brought to the attention of the Catholic Church and said “Hey, I really think this person was sincere and is probably in Heaven right now. I think we should pay them tribute and make their lives known so they can be an inspiration to others.” First, the Church examines the person’s life. If you’re faking your sincerity, after all, it’ll generally become clear at some point. If the Church decided that the person really did live an incredibly virtuous life and was likely sincere in their faith and actions, then they start looking for posthumous miracles attributed to that person.
Here is where a lot of Protestants go “Whaaaat??” Stick with me here. Catholics believe that we can ask anyone, living or dead, to pray for us. Just like I can ask a friend at church to remember me in her prayers, I can ask a loved one who died to pray for me to God. The mindset is: they’re right there in Heaven with Him. They’re not being distracted by the things of this world anymore. They literally have all of eternity now to worship God and pray for those of us still on Earth. So, we will ask saints (canonized or not) to pray, or intercede for us. This is what we are doing when we pray to saints.
Catholics are never, ever to worship saints (equate them to God). We may praise them, just as I praise a friend when they do something well. We may ask them to pray for us. But we do not worship them.
Like I said, once the consideration for Sainthood goes this far, the next step is to have two miracles attributed to the person after their death. In other words, someone asks the saint to please intercede and ask God to grant some type of favor. If the favor is granted and no non-miraculous explanation can be offered, it is considered a miracle and thus further evidence that yes, the person really was sincere during his/her life and is now in Heaven.
After two miracles have been confirmed and attributed to the intercessory prayers of the saint in question, the Church will officially bestow on the person the title of Saint, and begins to call the saint “Saint.”
The main points
In summary, here is what a Saint is not:
- Someone who was perfect
- Someone the Church has decided to allow into Heaven (‘cause… that’s totally our call…not)
- Someone who just did a lot of things to promote Catholicism
I wrote this specifically for my non-Catholic friends and family who might have wondered about us and our Saints. Even if you’re not a Catholic or even if you’re not a believer at all, the lives of many of the Saints are pretty fascinating to research. I recommend starting with soon-to-be Saint Teresa of Calcutta. The book Come Be My Light is a collection of letters she wrote to her confessors over her lifetime and I thought it was amazing. It was made into a move called The Letters recently that I have yet to see but about which I have heard good reviews.
Enjoy!