Read Some Saint's Lives!

“Like a loving mother, [the Church] carefully preserves the memory of and affection for the saints. This remembrance is, as it were, a divine comfort which lifts her eyes above the miseries of this earthly pilgrimage so that she finds in the saints ‘her joy and her crown.’ Thus she sees in them the sublime image of her heavenly Spouse. Thus she shows her children in each age the timeliness of the old truth: ‘For those who love God all things work together unto good, for those who, according to his purpose, are saints through his call.’ The glorious deeds of the saints, however, do more than afford us comfort. In order that we may imitate and be encouraged by them, one and all the saints echo in their own lives the saying of Saint Paul, ‘I beg you, be imitators of me, as I am of Christ’” (Pope St. Pius X, Editae Saepe, 1910).

“Do we want that glorious hunger the saints and true shepherds of the past had? Do we want to extinguish in ourselves this fire of self-love? Then let's act as they did, and extinguish fire with fire. Such was the fire of measureless blazing charity that burned in their hearts and souls that they were all famished and began to eat and savor souls. Oh sweet and glorious fire, so powerful that it extinguishes the fire of every disordered pleasure, enjoyment, and love of self - like a drop of water quickly consumed in the furnace! ...I see what path they followed, for once they had seen the fruitful tree of the most holy sweet cross, they never left it. There they found the Lamb slain such a fire of love for our salvation, seemingly insatiable. He even cries aloud that he is thirsty, as if to say: I have more zeal, thirst, desire for your salvation than I [can] show you with this finite suffering” (Suzanne Noffke, O.P., trans. The Letters of St. Catherine of Sienna [Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1988] p. 168).

“It is a good thing to behold with our own eyes the contendings of holy men, and their godly zeal and desire, for the sight thereof causeth us to love them. Nevertheless the narrations of such as have known them truly likewise furnish no small profit, stealing into the souls of them that listen. Sight indeed is more trustworthy than hearing, but hearing also persuadeth, if the tale be told by such as be worthy of belief” (Mark the Deacon, The Life of Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza).

“The example of the martyrs is most valuable Whilst the height of all virtues, dearly-beloved, and the fulness of all righteousness is born of that love, wherewith GOD and one's neighbour is loved, surely in none is this love found more conspicuous and brighter than in the blessed martyrs; who are as near to our LORD Jesus, Who died for all men, in the imitation of His love, as in the likeness of their suffering. For, although that Love, wherewith the LORD has redeemed us, cannot be equalled by any man's kindness, because it is one thing that a man who is doomed to die one day should die for a righteous man, and another that One Who is free from the debt of sin should lay down His life for the wicked: yet the martyrs also have done great service to all men, in that the Lord Who gave them boldness, has used it to show that the penalty of death and the pain of the cross need not be terrible to any of His followers, but might be imitated by many of them. If therefore no good man is good for himself alone, and no wise man's wisdom befriends himself only, and the nature of true virtue is such that it leads many away from the dark error on which its light is shed, no model is more useful in teaching God's people than that of the martyrs. Eloquence may make intercession easy, reasoning may effectually persuade; but yet examples are stronger than words, and there is more teaching in practice than in precept” (St. Leo the Great, Sermon 85).

“[He] has shown himself to us approved by God and love worthy before men, by reason of the righteous deeds which he displayed, through which he was worthy of being called into the healthful sufferings of Christ and of bearing wounds in his body for Christ's sake. He was perfect in great endurance, and mighty valour, and a pure heart, and in giving up his entire will to God through the great zeal which he had in his heart towards God, and in the fear of Him which he had within him, which bore fruit plentifully to Him a hundredfold, sixty fold, and thirty fold. Moreover, he forsook his own will, and the multiplying of his great wealth, and his servants, and all his riches, and hearkened unto the voice of God, and took up his cross, and walked after our Lord Jesus, following after Him with an upright heart… He burned with the Holy Spirit and performed his daily life with zeal that he might be among those that are chosen and that benefit out souls. In short, he performed the whole will of God and put himself beyond the reach of every thought which could offend the soul” (Abba Theodotus, The Passion of St. George).

“[I]t is neither possible for us ever to forsake Christ, who suffered for the salvation of such as shall be saved throughout the whole world (the blameless one for sinners), nor to worship any other. For Him indeed, as being the Son of God, we adore; but the martyrs, as disciples and followers of the Lord, we worthily love on account of their extraordinary affection towards their own King and Master, of whom may we also be made companions and fellow-disciples!” (The Martyrdom of Polycarp, 17)

“There is no doubt that the most beautiful quality, the quality most worthy of familiarizing oneself with which the saints possessed, was sanctity, no? Well this divine tapestry, whose embroidery and exquisite beauty exceed all praise, is only unfurled before the eyes of the sovereign Artisan who weaves it, such that not even the saints themselves have eyes sufficiently clear, so long as they remain mortal, to adequately realize the singular excellence of such a work. What we see of the Saints, in comparison to that which is hidden from the sight of men, is like the sparks that escape from a closed furnace, in comparison with the fire that burns its insides, or like a work of finest gothic sculpture seen through the wrapping with which it is covered” (P. Evaristo de la Virgen de Carmen, O.C.D., El Letradillo de Santa Teresa [Toledo, 1926] p. 16).

“If any men have esteemed grace according to its true worth, insofar as this is possible here on earth, without doubt it has been the saints of the New Law. If we wish, therefore, to realize the true value of grace, we shall do best to follow these saints. In order to defend and preserve grace, the Saints have spared neither their honor, their property, their limbs nor their lives. Rather, they believed, after having sacrificed all these things for grace, that they had gained great profit in the loss of all earthly and natural goods, and they thought that grace was given to them gratis, even they had paid such a great price. They thought of the words of our Divine Savior which teach us to tear out our eye, to cut off hand or foot, daily to carry our cross and even to give our life, in order to keep from losing grace and Heaven” (Fr. Matthias J. Scheeben, The Glories of Divine Grace [Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2000] p. 306).

“Consider now, O you that persecute us, what harm you do us: yea to what titles and glory you advance us, by putting us to death. You see, when you condemn us, you crown us; when you kill us, you increase us. Our number increaseth so often as you reap us, and seed is the blood of Christians. The more the children of were oppressed, the more they increased: and so it is with Catholics, as St. Augustine saith, The resurrection of immortality sprung more fertility, when it was sown in the blood of Martyrs. Our palms grow higher with weight; our flame waxeth the hotter with suppressing; and our spice yieldeth the better scent by pounding” (St. Robert Southwell, S.J., An Epistle of Comfort, Edited by Margaret Waugh [Chicago, IL: Loyola University Press, 1966] p. 228).

“Shall we not place among Apostles and Prophets a man who walked by the same Spirit as they; who never through all his days diverged from the footprints of the saints; who maintained, as long as he lived, the exact principles of evangelical citizenship? I am sure that we shall do the truth a wrong if we refuse to number that soul with the people of God, shining as it did like a beacon in the Church of God” (St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto).

“Here we behold the Apostles, and their successors in the several ages, calling out to the nations who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, "Arise, thou who sleepest, and Christ will enlighten thee!" --men of God, and gifted with his power, who, by preaching peace, enduring wrongs, and pardoning injuries, subdued the power of tyrants, stopped the mouths of lions, upturned paganism, demolished idols, planted everywhere the standard of the cross, and left to us the whole world illuminated by the rays of divine truth. Here is seen the meek martyr who possessed his soul in patience, --who, having suffered the loss of goods, the loss of kindred, the loss of fame, bowed down his head beneath the axe, and sealed, by the plentiful effusion of his blood, the testimony which he bore to virtue and truth. Here the youthful virgin, robed in innocence and sanctity, clothed with the visible protection of God, is seen at one time to yield up her frame, unfit, as yet, for torments, to the power of the executioner; while her spirit, ascending like the smoke of incense, passed from earth to heaven. At another time we behold her conducted, as it were, into the wilderness by the Spirit; where, having left the house of her father, the allurements of the world, and the endearments of life, she dedicates her whole being to the service of God, and to contemplation of those invisible goods which he has reserved for those who love him” (James Doyle, preface to Rev. Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints [New York, NY: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1895] Vol. I, pp. 8-9).

“Therefore do the choirs of all the Angels exult, who, anxious over the inhabiting of the empty thrones, begin to conduct (souls) from virtue to virtue, to those blessed mansions, from which the proud spirits were hurled down, via humility. All the souls of the just also exult, who have followed the footsteps of Christ and also all the faithful friends of God as much as from the Old as from the New Testament, who, having contemned the vanities of this age, rejoice together in the multitude of fellow citizens. Let the heaven exult in praise, let the earth resound with joys, since the generation of the Saints has brought gladness to very many. For mightily does the piety of the faith demand, that what is conducted for the salvation of the many, be celebrated everywhere with common joys. In truth does the Pontiff of the union of the blessed especially rejoice, and the sacred assembly of the Doctors, who shine in Heaven as stars for perpetual eternities” (Pope Sixtus IV,  Superna Caelestis, 1482)

"In this wise have the martyrs shown their power, leaping with joy in the presence of death, laughing at the sword, making sport of the wrath of princes, grasping at death as the producer of deathlessness, making victory their own by their fall, through the body taking their leap to heaven, suffering their members to be scattered abroad in order that they might hold their souls, and, bursting the bars of life, that they might open the gates of heaven. And if any one believes not that death is abolished, that Hades is trodden under foot, that the chains thereof are broken, that the tyrant is bound, let him look the martyrs disporting themselves in the presence of death, and taking up the jubilant strain of the victory of Christ" (St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, On All the Saints).

“[I]f their power in heaven be gathered by that which they had in earth, we have great cause to put confidence in it. If St Peter's shadow (Ac. 5), St Paul's handkerchiefs and girdles (ibid. 19), were able to cure diseases; if St. Paul's prayer in the ship was able to obtain the lives of of two hundred and seventy-six persons (ibid. 27), if St Stephen's prayer was so forcible for his persecutors as to convert a chief agent of his death (ibid. 7), why may we not infer with St. Jerome, that they are able to do much more in heaven, where they are in more favor with God and perfected in charity towards us? When they were yet mortal, saith St Bernard, and sure to die, they seemed to have commandment over life and death, putting to death the quick, and raising from death the dead, and that with only their word. How much more mighty are they now, when they are advanced to such unspeakable honour, and their princedom is most assuredly established? And again, How much more powerful are they in heaven, whose power was so great even here on earth?” (St. Robert Southwell, An Epistle of Comfort, Edited by Margaret Waugh [Chicago, Il: Loyola University Press: 1966] pp. 190-191)

"To myself also, the very least and last, how often has it been revealed, how frequently and manifestly has it been commanded by the condescension of God, that I should diligently bear witness and publicly declare that our brethren who are freed from this world by the Lord's summons are not to be lamented, since we know that they are not lost, but sent before; that, departing from us, they precede us as travellers, as navigators are accustomed to do; that they should be desired, but not bewailed; that the black garments should not be taken upon us here, when they have already taken upon them white raiment there; that occasion should not be given to the Gentiles for them deservedly and rightly to reprehend us, that we mourn for those, who, we say, are alive with God, as if they were extinct and lost" (St. Cyprian, On the Mortality, 20).

“As therefore it hath pleased God to raise up for our help and edification so many and so perfect models of Christian perfection, and disposed by his allwise providence that their lives should have been written for our instruction, we should not be faithful co-operators with the grace given to us, if we did not use our best efforts to learn and to imitate what our Father in heaven has designated for our use” (James Doyle, preface to Rev. Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints [New York, NY: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1895] Vol. I, p. 11).

“For, shining like the morning star in the midst of a dark cloud, he enlightened by the bright rays of his pure doctrine and holy life those who lay in darkness and in the shadow of death, and thus guided them onwards by his bright shining to the perfect day. And like the glorious rainbow set in the darkness of the clouds, he came forth as the angel of true peace and the sign of the covenant between God and man, bringing glad tidings of peace and salvation: being sent by God, like the precursor of Christ, to prepare in the desert of this world the highway of holy poverty, and by word and example to preach penance to men. Thus prevented [i.e. prepared, enabled] by the gifts of heavenly grace, enriched with the merits of invincible virtue, filled with the spirit of prophecy, and ordained to the angelic office of declaring good tidings, burning with seraphic fire, and raised above all human things in the fiery chariot of divine love, it may be reasonably affirmed from the clear testimony of his whole life that he came in the spirit and power of Elijah.” (St. Bonaventure, The Life of St. Francis of Assisi).

“[A]s by the exposition of [Scripture], we learn how virtue is to be found and kept: so by recounting the miracles of holy men, we know how that which is found out and possessed, is declared and made manifest to the world. And some there are that be sooner moved to the love of God by virtuous examples than by godly sermons: and oftentimes, by the lives of holy fathers, the heart doth reap a double commodity; for if, by comparing of his own life with theirs, he findeth himself inflamed with the love of heaven, although before he had haply a good opinion of himself, yet seeing now how far others do excel him, he becometh also more humble, and is brought to have a more lowly conceit of his own actions and virtue.” (Peter, Companion of Pope St. Gregory the Great, in Dialogues, Book 1).

“Holy Mother Church... does not cease to preach that God is wonderful in His Saints. Nor truly do they alone celebrate with exceptional praises the distinguished victories and the very bright merits of the Saints, but the same Saints, whom God wonderfully honors, She Herself also piously venerates and cares for, established (as She is) upon their preaching and salutary doctrine, founded upon their blood, instructed by their illustrious works of charity and their example, She is helped each day by their fervent prayers before God. Wherefore She greatly studies those things due to that celestial Hierarchy, where all are ordered in perfect charity, to conform Herself to that norm and image, indeed in as much as She is allowed in the exile of this passing world” (Pope Sixtus V, Triumphantis Hierusalem, 1588).