Are Saints Models to Emulate or Little Gods?

In preparation for my ministry in the priesthood, I spent some months in a parish. Something quickly caught my attention: from early morning to evening there were always people, especially women, who came for a short visit of prayer in the church.

The mornings were the most impressive. Some mothers with their little ones on the way to the pre-school dropped in. I could see an innocent child standing reverentially with the mother in prayer. Before leaving the church the mother would lift the child so that the little one could also kiss the icon. Marvellous!

However, before long, such scenes began to nag me. I ended up with questions.

I tried to understand what those regular visits were all about and what people actually did during those prayers. Some came in while the Mass was going on, piously went to the box for candles, dropped in coins with an attention-drawing jingle, and then went to immerse themselves in prayer to their favourite saint before whom they lit the candles.
Others came into the church and went straight to the little room on a side of the sanctuary where there was a statue of Padre Pio. They sat there secluded, evidently indifferent to the Mass. The Mass ended and people left, but they remained there. Surely there must have been something serious and urgent to ask from Padre Pio that would justify staying more than an hour. (Here I’m talking about a parish where if the Mass went a little more than 30 minutes, people would curse the priest for having preached for more than five minutes.)

Talking with some people I came to understand all this better. Most of them would talk about this and that problem they had, but after praying to Our Lady of this and that, or having prayed to Saint so and so, the problem is gone.

Yes, saints seemed so powerful that they won the attention of some people in such a way that the Real Presence of our Lord was pushed aside. It was all about holy water upon entering the Church, lighting candles before the statue of a saint, bowing and kissing the statue, and again holy water, and departure.

I cannot judge the hearts of the people, but in those rituals, Jesus in the Eucharist simply had no place; not even by way of genuflection towards the tabernacle. In that light, it all seemed so much less marvellous. I was left with questions: Who are the saints? How have they been presented to the people?

Perhaps saints have been presented in a manner that does not help to foster sanctity in the lives of the faithful.

Here is a story that a spiritual theology professor told. He was in Lebanon. He noticed a girl of about 12 years old, very pious and going to Mass every day and taking the sacrament of Reconciliation regularly. The professor, a priest, was preaching during Mass about a saint. Then he turned to the children and asked: Who among you wants to be saint? No, no, no! Not me! the pious 12-year old girl waved her finger in refusal.

Why would a girl react in that way? Is it a bad thing to be saint?

Well, the girl just couldn’t see herself fit into the category of saints as she may have seen on pictures of icons: monks with long beards vested in black soutanes with big pectoral crosses like little bishops; they were beings belonging to another world.

Most of the well-known saints are distant; they belong to centuries long past and lived in distant lands that to many of us exist only in our imagination. Seen in this way, they are not quite human like the rest of us.

What about those miracles that are needed to qualify for canonisation; wouldn’t that have negative effects? For the ordinary Christian, saints may be understood more in terms of the miracles that can happen in their name rather than their witness of life when they were still alive; you can use them only to obtain things for us from God.

And isnt that the reason for having patron saints for almost every situation: for drivers, for lost items, sickness and so on? Unfortunately, the witness that we are supposed to learn from them is simply watered down.

Is it that the African Church doesn’t have enough men and women whom we have met on the streets, whose witness for Christ would be more inspiring, not for obtaining miracles, but for rousing others to grow into holiness?

How does the African Church present saints in the catechesis? Is it just about painting a holy person in a way that dilutes the struggle and the efforts he or she might have put up against weakness in order to follow Christ?

The bishops of Eastern Africa have pointed out in relation to evangelisation: We know that as our Church in Africa grows in numbers we face the call to move to a more mature catechesis promoting a true Christian identity and a profound conversion of hearts.

Here is where I see the need for the Africa Church to rise, take up her pallet, and walk. Local bishops should cherish and make use of the exemplary life of men and women, known to the people, who in the struggles of the life familiar to the people stood for Christ. It’s not so much about initiating the process for canonisation, nor about calling someone Saint whatever.

What do I mean? Personally, I would not need to wait for, say, a Nelson Mandela to be proclaimed a saint in order to let his life’s example question me. He doesn’t have to be perfect in order for me to learn from him how to be a better Christian.

It’s high time that we demystified saints and present them to the African Catholic in such ways as to inspire conversion instead of inviting just chases for miracles. Otherwise, saints will always remain mysterious and distant beings who are what the ordinary ones cannot be.

Updated from 2010