Why Are Saints Important

and What is the Deal?

from our Angel Messenger Creative Team

If you’re not Catholic, you might wonder what the big deal is with saints. Catholics seem to love them, and use images of them everywhere. Saints are all over churches and holy items. In fact, saints can become so popular that even Catholics can start to take them for granted. So, wherever you stand when it comes to saints, here are eight reasons why you can take them seriously and why they’re important for your spiritual journey.

1. Saints Have High Standards

Saints started out as ordinary people, and they faced the same challenges as everyone else around them did. But instead of staying ordinary, they pushed themselves to grow in grace and love so that they could become extraordinary individuals.

How did they accomplish “extraordinary”? They always strove to place God first. And you can do this, too, whether you’re a Catholic or not. For example, who or what is God to you? How can you increase your connection to this Higher Power and grow in love, too?

2. Saints Are Faithful to a Higher Power

Everyone’s familiar with the motivational phrase, “Keep your eye on the prize.” And Catholic saints did this very well. What was their prize? To put it very simply, God. They learned to give up selfishness, pride, anger, and hate because these stood in the way of attaining union with God.

Saints continue to motivate Catholics today, but their influence can extend to anyone. For example, if you have a spiritual practice – whatever it may be – are you letting other distractions take priority and cloud your life?

3. Saints Are Passionate

Each saint had their own unique personality, but there’s one thing they all had in common. They were all passionate people, and nothing could extinguish the crazy love they had for God. Some of them gave up social popularity, family, careers and even their own lives instead of doing anything that would offend God.

Saints discovered what gave their life intense meaning, and they committed to this through hell or high water. Committing to your passion is a challenge with so much vying for your attention, but saints kept a laser-like focus. And if they could do it, you can, too.

4. Saints Have Cool Stories

The natural consequence of living a passionate life is leaving a magical legacy in your wake. Consider St. Augustine, a promiscuous youth, whose conversion story was so dramatic that his Confessions are still studied in secular universities to this day.

The twin sister of St. Benedict, St. Scholastica, was a force to be reckoned with. Since she could only visit her brother once a year, she didn’t want to say goodbye at the end of their yearly visit. What did she do to make her brother stay? She prayed for a storm, and St. Benedict had no other choice but to extend visit until the following day.

5. Saints’ Feast Days Enrich Cultures

In Europe, where the Catholic faith has been practiced for over 2,000 years, saints’ feast days have become bona fide cultural events. On the Italian island, Sardegna, St. Ephisius is honored by over 3,000 people with a four-day feast beginning on May 1^st. It’s complete with processions, which include traditional costumes and horses.

To honor Our Lady of Guadalupe, thousands of Mexicans and foreign visitors attend a church surface in Mexico City, followed by parties throughout the streets, all to celebrate a very important mother figure for Central America and beyond.

6. Saints are Historical

Even though saints are inspirational and motivational, that might not make them very important for you, especially since there are many powerful spiritual leaders living today – people you can follow on Twitter and Facebook, if you wanted to. Saints, on the other hand, are no longer alive.

But that also makes them fascinating. They lived in different time periods and conditions, societies and cultures, and had diverse backgrounds and social statuses. St. Thomas More worked for the King Henry VIII. St. Louis, on the other hand, was a king himself.

But whether you’re a history buff or not, it’s interesting to see how these holy men and women navigated different cultures, expectations, and norms. Because no matter what the country or century, there’s one constant factor that unites us all: human nature and every saint had to deal with it, too.

7. Saints Help People Like You and Me

We’ve all been told that “It’s not what you know. It’s who you know.” And you can think of saints this way, too. They’re no longer alive here on earth, but Catholics believe that they exist in Heaven, or, in the presence of God.

This means that saints are a connection between you and God. They’re the middlemen (and women!) between heaven and earth. So, if there’s something you’re struggling with, or a prayer you’re lifting up, you don’t have to ask for help alone. You can ask the saints to pray along with you. Since they’re always with God, they can put in a good word for you.

8. For Saints, Life is Both Everything and Nothing

No matter what your spiritual leaning, you probably believe that there’s more to this earthly life than what meets the eye. In fact, you may even believe that life on earth can distract you from growing in love, peace, and joy. Well, you’re in good company, because the saints thought so, too.

However, they still made the most of this life. They knew that living a good life here on earth meant enjoying true peace when their life continued after death. Saints knew that earth wasn’t their permanent home, but they were down-to-earth in their search for heaven. And this is a mindset that is paramount for today’s spiritual seekers, too.

Saints can enrich your spiritual practice, whether you follow a Western or Eastern religion or no religion at all. They’re people just like you and me, but then again, they’re so much more. Yet, they joyfully lead the way to living a more extraordinary life.

Much Love & Angel Blessings,

Angel Messenger