My future sister-in-law suggested that I write a blog explaining the difference between Saints (big S) and saints (little s) since our blog is called "cradle for saints". Saints (big S) comes from the Latin word "sanctus" which means holy. Saints are individuals who lived a life in loving response to God and so merited the rewards of eternal life with Him. Anyone who is in heaven is a Saint. Certain people are officially canonized Saints by the Catholic Church. This is done not for their benefit for they are already receiving all of their rewards eternally in heaven. The Church gives those of us still here on earth the gift of canonized Saints as an example to be followed. Knowing that they are in heaven we can follow their example and trust that through imitation of their lives, we too will one day be with God in heaven. One might ask: "aren't we supposed to imitate Christ in order to get to heaven?" Yes of course we are and that is precisely what the Saints did! What I love so much about the Saints is that they were people like you and me who went above and beyond being simply good people. They show us that loving God to the fullest is not only possibly but eternally rewarding.
saints (little s) refers to those who are living in the state of God's grace while still here on earth. We can say that a newly baptized baby is a saint because they are holy as the definition of the word indicates.
Eric and I got the name of our blog from a document entitles "The Large Family" by Pope Pius XII. Pope Pius XII wrote, "With good reason, it has often been pointed out that large families have been in the forefront as the cradles of saints." When one studies the lives of the Saints one will often find that they came from large, devoted, Christian families. Meditating on this Eric and I began to see that creating a cradle for saints and God willing Saints is exactly what we desire for our marriage. Reading these words from the Holy Father also solidified in our hearts a deep desire to be very generous with God regarding the size of our family. Ultimately the size of our family is in the hands of our Lord and we abandon ourselves, our family, and the future sanctity of our children into his loving hands.
If you are interested in learning more about the Saints (big S) their is a great book called "Saints for Dummies" by Father John Trigilio and Father Kenneth Brighenti that I highly recommend. I actually use that book as the text for the Lives of the Saints course that I currently teach.
Also here is a link to the full text of the document The Large Family by Pope Pius XII:
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=5370
"All is grace" -St. Therese
No comments:
Post a Comment