Saints have done some amazing things, and their stories have laid the groundwork for what we as Christians should strive to be. We don’t even know who most of the saints are, considering there are over 10,000 of them. Even if you chose to study one of them each day, it would take over 27 years to make it through all of them, with more saints being canonized each year. Pope Francis alone canonized 942 of them during his papacy (2013-2025).
How can we remember them all? How are we supposed to study them all to become more saintly? That’s what All Saints Day is for. While we may not know the whole list of saints, we can study them and pray to all of them on All Saints Day in recognition of their lives and what they did to serve God and the Church. On this day we also recognize those who are Blessed, those who are on the way to become a saint.
But how do we become more “saintly”, like St. Peter who opted to be crucified upside down because he didn’t feel worthy to be martyred in the same way that Jesus was? Or St. Francis of Assisi who threw himself into a rose bush from a third story window because he had sinned (although God comically took all the thorns away so he wouldn’t hurt himself; St. Francis was not happy about that)? How are we supposed to imitate them?
Well, not all of the saints went to extremes to live out their faith. From St. Carlo Acutis (who was canonized just a couple months ago) who documented Eucharistic miracles on a website, modeling how to evangelize in modern society, to St. Augustine, who after finding God spent his life writing his Confessions, which helped form western civilization’s philosophy and are still being studied today.
There are ways we can better ourselves, whether it is practicing more humility, finding the love of God even on the bad days, finding joy in others, or even just improving routine intentional prayer. There are always ways we can be more saintly.
My wife’s family has a beautiful tradition where each person in the family selects a patron saint. They pick a slip of paper with a saint’s name on it from a bowl, then study and ask for the intercession from that saint for the whole year. This allows them to actively educate themselves on saints that they otherwise wouldn’t know about. Learning the stories of the saints is a great way to grow not only as a person, but also in our Catholic faith.
Daily Reading
Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading 1 Malachi 3:19-20a Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will…
Saint of the Day
St. Joseph Moscati
St. Joseph Moscati
Feast date: Nov 16
On November 16, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Joseph Moscati, the first modern medical doctor to be canonized. Born on July 25, 1880 in Benevento, Italy, he lived out the Gospel through his position as a teacher and physician. There are a number of stories of Dr. Moscati paying close attention to the state of his patient’s soul as well as the body, sometimes even bringing the patient back to the sacraments. The Catholic understanding of body and soul clearly informed his understanding of illness and medicine. He saw Confession and Communion as the “first medicine.”He is quoted as once having said, “Remember that you have to deal not only with the bodies but also with the moaning souls coming to you.”Dr. Moscati’s holiness and devotion wasn’t just limited to his practice. To help the poor, he often donated his medical services or paid for his patients’ prescriptions. St. Joseph Moscati also felt it was important to support priests and those in religious life with his prayers because, as he said: “They are easily forgotten by the living, since Christians often think that they do not need prayers.”He carried a Rosary in his pocket as a reminder throughout his day and as a way to draw him to Our Lady — and through her, to Jesus — when he needed to make important decisions.St. Joseph Moscati died on April 12, 1927 of natural causes in his office between patient appointments. He was beatified on November 16, 1975 by Pope Paul VI and canonized on October 25, 1987 by Pope John Paul II. His body rests in Naples, Italy, in the Church of Gesu Nuovo.