My spiritual hero is Pere Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P. He has been beatified for a few years, close to canonization. Please pray with me that it happens soon.
The Road
Servant of God: The first step, start the process with the Vatican.
Venerable: If your candidate is acceptable, the process may begin.
Blessed: One authenticated miracle caused by Father Lataste.
Saint: One more miracle is accepted. We are awaiting acceptance.
Why do we have saints anyway and why so many? I think the answer would be that we people need the assurance that heaven is attainable by ordinary people and that's the answer to why so many, too. Surely, there's some model for everybody. The lives of the saints are reminders to us that we can do it too.
Not only are they models for us but they become our friends. The friends of God are our friends, too. We can ask them to pray for us. Don't we ask our family and friends to pray for us? Well, the saints in heaven are more alive than we are! Hence, all saints in heaven, pray for me!
Did you know that not until the end of the first millennium, that the pope was the final decision-maker in determining whether to call the Blessed, Saint? Before then, it was easier. Of course, if you died a martyr, you were called Saint, immediately. That was the time when cults arose to honor the martyr. In fact, when a martyr was beheaded, the followers rushed forward to dip pieces of cloth in his blood. Then these souvenirs were kept to remind the faithful of his sacrifice and his goodness. These souvenirs are called relics.
Once Christianity became legal, few died as martyrs, but it was obvious that some people lived very holy lives. How to honor them? These obviously holy people were canonized and called "confessors." They are/were people who professed Jesus to the world. They were recognized not only by their holy lives but also by miracles attributed to them after they died.
The person who handled these claims was still the pope. But it grew to be too much. Pope John XV approved the first papal canonization in 993 in a method that resembled court methods. The person who examined became known as the "devil's advocate." I picture him as the prosecuting attorney.
Pope Benedict XIV wrote five volumes on beatification and canonization, and this was followed for 200 years. It became part of the Code of Canon Law in 1917. During Vatican II, a commission examined the process. Pope John Paul II finished the reorganization in 1983.
The person who gathers the material and does all the research is called the postulator. By the way, the postulator doesn't work for love. He has to eat. IOW, he needs a salary, so it does take money to get a person canonized. The postulator for Blessed Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste is Father Jean-Marie Gueullette, O.P. and he has already spent 20 years of his life working on Lataste's cause for sainthood.
Would anyone do that if he didn't believe that Pere Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste wasn't a saint? So whether or not Pere Lataste is ever canonized we know that he really is a saint.
* "Making Saints" by Bill Dodds in Columbia, November 2000, pp.16-19 was the basis for this post.
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| Pere Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P. |
The Road
Servant of God: The first step, start the process with the Vatican.
Venerable: If your candidate is acceptable, the process may begin.
Blessed: One authenticated miracle caused by Father Lataste.
Saint: One more miracle is accepted. We are awaiting acceptance.
Why do we have saints anyway and why so many? I think the answer would be that we people need the assurance that heaven is attainable by ordinary people and that's the answer to why so many, too. Surely, there's some model for everybody. The lives of the saints are reminders to us that we can do it too.
Not only are they models for us but they become our friends. The friends of God are our friends, too. We can ask them to pray for us. Don't we ask our family and friends to pray for us? Well, the saints in heaven are more alive than we are! Hence, all saints in heaven, pray for me!
Did you know that not until the end of the first millennium, that the pope was the final decision-maker in determining whether to call the Blessed, Saint? Before then, it was easier. Of course, if you died a martyr, you were called Saint, immediately. That was the time when cults arose to honor the martyr. In fact, when a martyr was beheaded, the followers rushed forward to dip pieces of cloth in his blood. Then these souvenirs were kept to remind the faithful of his sacrifice and his goodness. These souvenirs are called relics.
Once Christianity became legal, few died as martyrs, but it was obvious that some people lived very holy lives. How to honor them? These obviously holy people were canonized and called "confessors." They are/were people who professed Jesus to the world. They were recognized not only by their holy lives but also by miracles attributed to them after they died.
The person who handled these claims was still the pope. But it grew to be too much. Pope John XV approved the first papal canonization in 993 in a method that resembled court methods. The person who examined became known as the "devil's advocate." I picture him as the prosecuting attorney.
Pope Benedict XIV wrote five volumes on beatification and canonization, and this was followed for 200 years. It became part of the Code of Canon Law in 1917. During Vatican II, a commission examined the process. Pope John Paul II finished the reorganization in 1983.
The person who gathers the material and does all the research is called the postulator. By the way, the postulator doesn't work for love. He has to eat. IOW, he needs a salary, so it does take money to get a person canonized. The postulator for Blessed Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste is Father Jean-Marie Gueullette, O.P. and he has already spent 20 years of his life working on Lataste's cause for sainthood.
Would anyone do that if he didn't believe that Pere Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste wasn't a saint? So whether or not Pere Lataste is ever canonized we know that he really is a saint.
* "Making Saints" by Bill Dodds in Columbia, November 2000, pp.16-19 was the basis for this post.
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