Wisdom from the Saints, Our Friends in a High Place

In honor of the Feast of All Saints (the day after Hallowed Eve), I’m offering eighteen of their words of wisdom. The saints are our heroes. They lived life successfully and show us how to do it. One of my favorite lines comes from St. Turibius, archbishop of Lima, Peru: “Christ called himself the truth […]

Saints: Flawed Heroes

Happy Halloween (Saints’ Eve) and Happy Feast of All Saints! What pops into your mind when you hear the word saint? Do you think of someone pale and sickly, serious (if not downright grim), clothed in religious garb and living in caves or on clouds? Actually the saints had their feet on the ground. They […]

To Be or Not to Be . . . a Saint

This past week I was interviewed about saints for a podcast, so I thought I’d share some thoughts about them this week. I believe it was Leon Bloy who noted, “The only failure in life is not to be a saint.” A saint is someone who made it to heaven. Consider the alternative. Sometimes people […]

Flaws: Saints Weren’t Perfect Either

We’ve just finished a presidential campaign which was discouraging to many because both candidates were flawed. This prompted me to resurrect excerpts from an article I wrote decades ago: “Nobody is perfect.” How glibly we say that, but some of us have difficulty realizing that “nobody” includes us. Most of us, however, wake every morning […]

Grace in the Daily Grind

Most of our lives are spent carrying out necessary routines: eating, doing dishes, washing, cleaning, driving, and (hopefully) exercising. If we work, our job might be quite ordinary, menial, or boring. Day follows day, and we don’t expect to ever appear on the evening news for an act of heroism. Neither do we expect to […]

To Be a Saint or Saintly Sinner

Since we are approaching the feast of the halloweds (the saints), I’ve been musing about sainthood. One of my favorite prayers as a teenager was, “O God Who art all powerful, make me a saint.” Some people exclaim, “I’m no saint,” yet we are all called to be saints. As French novelist Leon Bloy pointed […]

Advice from the Saints

In honor of the Feast of All Saints, I thought I would post twelve of their words of wisdom. After all, the saints are our heroes. They lived life successfully and know how to do it. One of my favorites from St. Turibius: “Christ called himself the truth not the custom.” Some of these quotations […]

Saints Walk Among Us

Sometimes it’s pointed out that “we stand on the shoulders of giants.” We also rub shoulders with giants and may not even realize it. On the Feast of All Saints we celebrate all people who have made it into heaven, whether they’ve been officially canonized or not. It’s pretty obvious that Mother Teresa and Padre […]

How to Be a Gentleman or Gentlewoman

In his book The Idea of a University Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman defined a gentleman as “one who never inflicts pain.”  (Of course, this also holds true for a gentlewoman.)  I was going to write about what this means, but in checking to see if I remembered his words correctly, I discovered that this […]