Who Dat?

By now we all know the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl and that their tag line is who dat.  As lent approaches and debauchery descends upon New Orleans during Mardi Gras we should take some time and ask who dat about the real saints.

The Catholic Church honors deceased individuals who have shown heroic virtue throughout their lives.  We dont worship them, we dont think they are God, we dont buy them sneakers (wait....., what!?), just kidding, I just wanted your attention.  These saints are guys named Drew, Marques, and Pierre. No, not Drew Brees, Marques Colston, and Pierre Thomas but  St. Andrew, one of the apostles, St. Mark, one of the Gospel authors, and of little fame, St. Pierre-Francois Neron who was a 19th century French priest who went to Vietnam to preach the faith and was captured, tortured, and beheaded.

Saints are people just like you and I who lived their lives of heroic virtue in service to the faith.  Everyone in heaven is considered a saint.  However the Church only grants the title St. to those who have been studied and whom multiple miracles have been attributed to and have been proven. (find out about the process here) So what, good for them.  Nope, wrong. Good for us.  These people not only leave us their example but also their prayers. Since we know they are in heaven we can ask them to pray for us directly to God while we may be off doing something else like shoveling snow, taking a test, participating in a conference call, or eating fruit roll-ups.  Seriously, dont we ask one another to pray for us in times of need even though we ask God ourselves.  Its always good to have as many prayers as possible in times of need, so why not ask a saint whom we know is chilln with J right now.

Chances are that there is a saint or two who shares your name.  Find out about that person and ask them to pray for you. Here is a good link to check this out. Being a saint takes work and hopefully we will all be one one day but until then we need to continue to try to "keep it real" and ask for help to do so

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future." - Oscar Wilde