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gtrguy155
Guest
I was just wondering - doesnt the bible say that all christians on earth are “saints” ? How come only people who have lived exeptional lives for christ and are approved called “saints” and not the rest of us?
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ConstantineTG
Guest
Believers in communion with Christ are saints. That could be people on earth. But because we sin, we lost that communion, thus we lose our sainthood. Those in heaven are permanently in communion with God.
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Julia_Mae
Guest
We are saints, or will be unless we end up in hell. The Church recognizes officially that certain persons are in Heaven, through the process of Canonization and that requires some evidence. The Church doesn’t say only those people are in Heaven, surely there are millions there.
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odhiambo
Guest
The word “saint “is derived from the Latin word “ sanctus” which means “ holy”. In this original meaning of the word, every Christian soul united with Christ through Baptism, is holy, a saint. This original meaning of the word has since gone out of use.
Nowadays when we say “saint”, we mean only those in heaven.
Nowadays when we say “saint”, we mean only those in heaven.
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Bookcat
Guest
Actually …while yes people often use “Saint” for only those in heaven…it is still used for the rest of us who are living in Christ!
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Bookcat
Guest
“At the beginning of Christianity, the members of the Church were also called “saints”. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul addresses “those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Cor 1: 2). Indeed, Christians are already saints because Baptism unites them to Jesus and to his Paschal Mystery, but at the same time they must become so by conforming themselves every more closely to him. Sometimes, people think that holiness is a privileged condition reserved for the few elect. Actually, becoming holy is every Christian’s task, indeed, we could say, every person’s! The Apostle writes that God has always blessed us and has chosen us in Christ “that we should be holy and blameless before him… in love” (Eph 1: 3-5). All human beings are therefore called to holiness, which ultimately consists in living as children of God, in that “likeness” with him in accordance with which they were created. All human beings are children of God and all must become what they are by means of the demanding process of freedom. God invites everyone to belong to his holy people. The “Way” is Christ, the Son, the Holy One of God: “no one comes to the Father but by me [Jesus]” (cf. Jn 14: 6).”
–Pope Benedict XVI
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/angelus/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20071101_all-saints_en.html
and the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
823 "The Church . . . is held, as a matter of faith, to be unfailingly holy. This is because Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is hailed as ‘alone holy,’ loved the Church as his Bride, giving himself up for her so as to sanctify her; he joined her to himself as his body and endowed her with the gift of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God."289 The Church, then, is "the holy People of God,"290 and her members are called "saints."
–Pope Benedict XVI
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/angelus/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20071101_all-saints_en.html
and the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
823 "The Church . . . is held, as a matter of faith, to be unfailingly holy. This is because Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is hailed as ‘alone holy,’ loved the Church as his Bride, giving himself up for her so as to sanctify her; he joined her to himself as his body and endowed her with the gift of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God."289 The Church, then, is "the holy People of God,"290 and her members are called "saints."
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odhiambo
Guest
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