Why do we need a friendship with the saints? Why do Catholics ask for intercessions from the saints? What does “communion with the saints” mean?
I was inspired by my “friendship with the saints” post to start a project. Reflecting on all the saints I have become friends with got me thinking about how All Saints Day is coming up, and how neat it would be if I can collect other stories from the community about their friendships with the saints to release either for All Saints Day or for the month of November. I am also diving into researching answers to the questions in the opening of this post (provided in the Catechism) and hope to provide an insightful post for the many who have these questions.
This is where I need help!
Do you have a story of friendship you’ve developed with a saint? Would you consider sharing it with me to help me with this project?
The Goal of this Project
My goal is to share all the stories I have collected either as one big blog post, smaller blog posts released throughout November, or possibly as a google drive (still figuring out the details) in combination with the research I have been working on so that others are inspired to form their own friendships with the saints and also to learn about a variety of saints they might not have had exposure to in the past.
I want to share these stories of our friendship with the saints to better show how we are all one Church, on Earth, in purgatory, and in Heaven. I believe that it would help us feel more like a community as well as more hopeful knowing we have powerful intercessors on our side.
It’s easy to build up a list of saints we admire from hearing their stories about their lives. I feel like their stories are shared a lot, but what’s not shared as much are personal stories of how the saints have helped us through intercessions in our everyday lives. I’m not talking about all the miraculous stories that helped declare them saints, but rather the everyday occurrences of how the saints have helped us along the way to get to heaven and show that we are One Holy Catholic Church. It could be as simple as Saint Anthony helping you find your car keys every time they are misplaced, or as powerful as St. Gianna helping you conceive after a bout of infertility.
We are all part of the same team and want the same thing for each other-to be close to God. Sometimes the lives of the saints seem unattainable and friendship with them doesn’t seem likely because what is commonly heard are the miracles that they perform or how holy they were. That is why I started focusing on “the small things” on my blog as ways to earn our sainthood. That is why now I want to focus on another seemingly small thing (but we know it can make a big difference)- friendship. I want to encourage others to form friendships with the saints, by sharing stories of others who have had successful friendships with them.
A beautiful thing about friendship is that it can come in many forms and with many people. Sometimes friendship takes a lot of work, other times it can come easier. I am hoping to get a collection of stories of friendship with a variety of saints to share. The saints I’m friends with may not be the same that others have formed friendships with, and for those that are just learning about the saints I’d like to have a variety of stories to share to expand their knowledge of them and also help expose others to new saints.
How to Help
Please consider sharing your story, or if you don’t have one, you can tell others to send their stories to me. You can reach me through my Instagram messages, Facebook messages, or contact page on this website. I am so excited to read everyone’s stories!
I love this. I can’t wait to hear everyone’s stories.
This sounds like a great project. I hope you get many stories.