October is my favorite month, because autumn is so beautiful in Wisconsin and because we celebrate many remarkable saints!

Ss. Thérèse of Lisieux, Francis of Assisi, Bruno, Denis, Carlo Acutis, Teresa of Avila, Margaret Mary, Hedwig, Ignatius of Antioch, Luke the Evangelist, the North American Martyrs, Faustina Kowalska, Francis Borgia, John Paul II, Simon, and Jude, as well as Our Lady of the Rosary and the Guardian Angels.  

When I was a child, my parish had a little library replete with books on the lives of the saints. I was immediately fascinated and voraciously read about the remarkable deeds and intense holiness that marked these heroes of our faith.  

The saints are to holiness what the astronauts are to outer space; they explore the realms of spiritual possibility and show us in their attractive variety what one soul completely surrendered to God is capable of.

The saints were real people

Our human tendency to mythologize our heroes can make the saints so inaccessible, so beyond the human, so above us that we despair that we could ever be as holy as they.

We put the saints on pedestals and then unconsciously dismiss them as actual people. Such a distancing would be a mistake.  

Of course, the saints were real, struggled with tangled relationships and emotions, often overcoming serious sin, suffering heavy crosses and difficulties like all of us.  

So what makes the saints different? Why do they stand out?  

As different as they were from one another in time, place, circumstance, and temperament, all the saints were radically committed to a life of prayer, embraced the dark night of suffering, surrendered in humility to the will of God in all things, and came to a profound and consuming love of the Lord, acted out in service to other people.

God became everything for them, and so their own wants and desires, the opinion of others, and worldly wisdom no longer controlled what they did or how they thought.

Infused with the Holy Spirit, the saints acted out the Gospel in radical ways.

Francis of Assisi kissed a leper. Mother Teresa picked up dying people from the gutters of Calcutta. Katherine Drexel gave away a fortune to the poor. John Paul II forgave his would-be assassin. Teresa of Avila reformed her Carmelite Order. Elizabeth Seton converted to Catholicism after the death of her husband and lost all her friends and worldly support.

When we see all human history as the unfolding drama of salvation in Christ, we quickly realize we are all players in this love story.  

Our call to be like the saints

For a few brief years, we enjoy the privilege of standing on the stage of the world in this life and acting out the will and mercy of God.  

With the Gospel as our script, the Lord invites us to incarnate the life and the love of Jesus in such a beautiful and attractive way that others will be drawn to know and love God and take up their role in this ongoing narrative of Divine Mercy.  

The canonized saints are those who acted out the Gospel so well that we will forever honor and remember them as heroic examples of sanctity.

The saints help us in so many ways. They inspire us by their heroic deeds and remarkable virtue. They show us that true holiness is possible for everybody. They intercede for us before the throne of God, ardently hoping that we will stand with them one day in the blazing glory of the Most Holy Trinity. They want to help us with both heavy crosses and minor details of our earthly lives.  They watch over us and love us, understanding our human struggles here because they were once here themselves and know how difficult and steep is the path to God.  

The saints are attentive and vigilant to us. As St. Thérèse of Lisieux promised, “I will return! I will come down! I want to spend my Heaven doing good on earth!”

Pray to the saints. Ask them for favors. They will not disappoint.