Serve like the saints — and with them

We go to the saints like we do our friends and family, so we do not have to be loners when it comes to living the faith as God calls us — to teach, provide, protect and lead. Those holy men and women whom we celebrate come the first of November — the solemnity of All Saints —compel us to emulate their example, giving us ways and means to answer the call to serve others diligently and prayerfully. The saints we celebrate reflect our monthly petition and prayer: to transform people to offer their lives in service to others — as the saints did as living sacrifices filled with the abundance of Christ’s love. We do this for justice, with mercy, in forgiveness and for peace.

We are called to live sacramental lives of prayer, mercy, forgiveness, service and love, as the saints so justly lived with their time, talent and treasure. Like the saints, we are called to protect the helpless, care for the sick, feed the hungry, support the homeless and lead those who have fallen astray back to the faith. So many times, within the sphere of influence in which God placed them, the saints needed remarkable physical, intellectual and spiritual abilities. They responded by sacrificially living out their lives with unending acts of corporal and spiritual mercy.

Christians must love and serve one another. As Catholics, we do not choose to go it alone in acts of service because we value being in relationship — which entails both communication and presence. As in the presence of the holy Eucharist, surrounded by the saints and angels and in communion with our brothers and sisters in Christ. As an invocation of the penitential act tells us: “Lord Jesus, you come to us in word and sacrament to strengthen us in holiness.” And, he provides us with the Church Triumphant — the communion of saints in heaven above — for that reason as well. Because they are friends and family. Their prayers and actions are immensely powerful.

With so much spiritual and physical combat going on throughout the world today, we certainly need to learn and receive help from the saints. The saints who are alive and well hear our prayers— “He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” (Mk 12:27). As Catholic Watchmen, we serve as a witness to family and community — a weekly discipline — and we understand that includes calling on the intercession of our favorite saints. We call on Apostles, martyrs, pastors, preachers, doctors of the Church — all holy men and women who teach us best by how they lived and fought in their evangelization efforts, disciple-making apostolates and loving service to others, even as they struggled and triumphed through trials and tribulations.

Call on your favorite saints to help you love and serve God better. Strive to offer your life to others as self-gift — starting with your family. With the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph at the domestic helm, I have many “go to” saints, depending on the situation, to strengthen me in holiness: Padre Pio (“pray, hope and don’t worry”); Thomas Aquinas (“study well”); Francis de Sales (“write/evangelize courageously”); Anthony (“lost things”); Isidore (“success for farmers”); Agnes (“purity of body, soul, heart”); John Vianney (“good confession”); John Paul II (“vibrant, joyful soul and intellect”); Mother Teresa (“love and charity”) — to name just a few.

I’ve heard that a saint was simply “a sinner who loves God more than his or her sin.” Perhaps. For sure the saints knew that spiritual and physical warfare are concurrent in the world, yet Christ actively taught and healed through them as they served others. Jesus was their perfect model of sacrifice. Surviving and thriving in the world to serve others, to experience the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, required their relentless daily conviction to an active prayer life.

St. Teresa of Kolkata knew all about prayer, and how it supplies the wherewithal to give hope and love unceasingly while serving others. The great saint who founded the Missionaries of Charity — serving the poorest of the poor — once commented on the impact that a prayer life can have on charitable works, saying “I used to believe prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us, and we change things.”

Deacon Bird ministers at St. Joseph in Rosemount and All Saints in Lakeville and assists with the archdiocese’s Catholic Watchmen movement.