Not sure why I thought about this topic but just how did the entire notion of Saints come about? Were/are there any jewish saints, (ie: pre-Jesus)? Just how did they come about?
I’m also curious about protestant religions and saints. Do they recognize all of our saints before the split(s)? Do these religions still name people as saints?
Peace, T.W.
Each of the Saints was chosen by God to receive extraordinary graces. As such, each one was transformed, interiorly, so that their top priority in life became not their own wills but God’s Will. Then, He transformed them even more completely so that they
only pursued God’s Will. Saint Teresa of Avila wrote that Jesus said to her, “Occupy yourself with My interests, Teresa, and I will occupy Myself with yours.”
Those in the Old Testament who most nearly correspond to the Saints are the Prophets. Saint John the Baptizer was the last of the Old Testament Prophets. Jesus said of him, “never has a man been born of woman greater than John the Baptist. Yet the least born into the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he.” So in this way, the comparison between the Old Testament Prophets and the Saints is inapt.
The reality of the religion that Jesus established is that it has the power to completely convert a sinner to an ex-sinner. The Saints all took that power seriously enough to take Christ at His word, and allow Him to so change them. If it were not so, I do not think an argument could really be made for the Church to be the one true religion. But it is so; it is not enough, to recognize that one is a sinner and needs God for salvation. It is also necessary to accept the graces God gives one. The Saints, before they each died, entered perfection, and accepted 100% of the graces God was giving them. That is what each of us should strive for, and the Saints, also, can help us! So we should always ask them for their help.
To the best of my knowledge, Protestants do not recognize the special graces God gave the Saints. They say, we are all saints, and the Catholic Church also teaches that we are all
called to be saints (lower case ‘s’), but the Catholic Church acknowledges God’s choice of certain persons and God’s informing His Church of it. I think the Protestants, in like manner that they honor the priesthood of all believers but deny the Sacramental, Magisterial priesthood and hierarchy, also honor the sanctity of all believers in heaven, but deny the mediation of grace through the Saints. They deny also that the Saints entered heaven while still on earth (Heaven consists entirely in sinlessness).
