Feeling drawn to a holy person who is not a saint yet

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Tis_Bearself

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I had kind of an up and down, if not exactly bad, week last week and in the middle of it I suddenly had a thought ( wouldn’t call it a vision, it was just a strong thought or mental picture) of Mother Angelica and that she was my friend and I should pray to her. I felt better after having had the thought.

By way of background, my mother was a big Mother Angelica fan for years, watched her all the time, constantly tried to get me to watch her but I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t have anything against Mother Angelica but I was in the process of being a Chreaster/ fallen away Catholic and committing sins and just didn’t want to deal with it. In recent years since I came back to the Church I have occasionally watched old videos of her on Youtube.

Mom eventually died and the Easter after Mom’s death I went to New York to go to Masses at St. Pat’s and try to make myself feel better and while I was laying around my hotel room after Mass I heard on the news that Mother Angelica had died and I immediately thought it was no coincidence that God had taken her to have Easter in Heaven because she was probably a saint.

I am from Northeast Ohio originally so it is interesting to me that Mother Angelica grew up in Canton and was involved there with Servant of God Rhoda Wise whose shrine I visit. It seems we might someday get one or two saints from Ohio, which is very exciting since the USA doesn’t have very many saints. I have been praying every day for a year for Rhoda’s canonization already so it is not a big stretch to think of Mother Angelica as well although I assume they are waiting the five years after death to open her cause. I also have a list of people who do not currently have a canonization cause who I pray to (“so and so, Pray for Us”) and Mother Angelica is on that list.

Has anyone else felt like they should pray to someone who is not yet on the path to canonization, but perhaps might be later on?
 
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Widespread popular devotion to a person (as toward a saint, not just fandom) is one of the signs that God favors him being canonized. Obviously there are other criteria, but that one is very important.

I have a whole list of folks whom I ask to pray for me!

I’m very excited that G.K. Chesterton and his wife are finally getting a cause, because they are awesome.

(And of course, we should always talk to our family and friends in heaven/Purgatory, and pray for anybody we think might be in Purgatory.)
 
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Mintaka said:
Widespread popular devotion to a person (as toward a saint, not just fandom) is one of the signs that God favors him being canonized. Obviously there are other criteria, but that one is very important.
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I agree…I also love Mother Angelica. My dad loves her and he used her story to help draw me to the Church. Her two biographies are powerful.
 
Yes, that is why I have a list of people who aren’t “on the path” who I pray to. Some of them will never be saints (Thomas a Kempis’ cause was rejected; Eric Liddell and the Ten Boom sisters were Protestants) but some of them are Catholics who I would like to see become saints, like Mother Angelica, Fr. Willie Doyle, Sr. Mildred Mary Neuzil, and Elizabeth (Erzebet) Kindelmann.
 
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I also have a list (and my mom would disown me if Corrie Ten Boom were not on that list, we grew up reading her books!) that includes my protestant grandmother, more than a few priests, etc.

Canonization causes are expensive, so many stall out because of the cost. This is why, when I can, I donate to Dorothy Day’s cause.
 
We were taught in school that when his body was exhumed, there were scratch marks on the inside of the coffin lid and splinters under his fingernails. This was taken to mean that Thomas was accidentally buried while still alive and woke up in the coffin. The investigators felt that he could have somehow committed some mortal sin during the short amount of time he was alive in the coffin and therefore abandoned his cause since they couldn’t be certain.

Of course any rational person who hears this story thinks immediately that such a decision was grossly unfair and that whatever you said or did when you happened to wake up in a coffin six feet under and stay alive for a few minutes would be immediately excused by God as being “under duress” of the worst sort rather than a free choice.

Edited to add, the veracity of this story has been debated and it is frequently mentioned on “urban legend” websites, but it is not a new story. I heard it from the nuns back in the 70s when I was in school.

http://www.timothyedmoore.com/why-isnt-thomas-akempis-a-saint-of-the-catholic-church/
 
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Thanks for sharing that. I like the conclusion of the article: ‘When you read his writings, you will know that this humble saint worked tirelessly to keep his vanity in check. Accordingly, it would not surprise me if Thomas, finding himself buried alive, intentionally scuttled his chances of being canonized by making such marks on his coffin in order to avoid being honored as a saint in years to come.’
 
It is sort of ironic in a nice way that his best-known work went on and on about humility in a really extreme way and then he gets the ultimate humility of not being named a saint despite his book influencing many saints.
 
I dont’ pray to them but Bede Griffiths, Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Merton are people to whose writings I am drawn.
 
That is a bizarre theory about Thomas a’Kempis…very sad because I love his writings.

Fr John Hardon is another one whose canonization I’m interested in, along with Fulton Sheen. I hope the news about Chesterton is true…I thought his had been denied.

I agree about Corrie ten Boom!! She is such an inspiration. I wish C.S. Lewis could be canonized as well.
 
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I have prayed to Mother Angelica, and Mother Teresa before she was canonized, but no others who have not been beatified. I hope to see Therese Neumann, Thomas à Kempis, Fr John Hardon, and Dorothy Day canonized or at least beatified in my lifetime.
 
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