{"id":446,"date":"2011-03-19T11:04:30","date_gmt":"2011-03-19T15:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=446"},"modified":"2011-03-19T11:04:30","modified_gmt":"2011-03-19T15:04:30","slug":"the-saints-are-examples-to-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/the-saints-are-examples-to-us\/","title":{"rendered":"The Saints Are Examples To Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we think of saints, the first thing that comes to mind is often ‘people that are in heaven.’\u00a0 The second thing that might come to mind is that we pray for their intercession.<\/em>\u00a0 I emphasize ‘for their intercession’ because we do not pray for the saints to do miracles for us.\u00a0 Rather, we pray to the saints to ask them to intercede for us with their prayers to God.\u00a0 God is the one who performs the miracles.<\/p>\n

Another way we view the saints is as examples.\u00a0 Ultimately, we enter into Heaven only through the redemption Jesus won for us on the Cross.\u00a0 Yet, we are still called to strive to live good lives here on Earth.\u00a0 The saints did not live perfect lives.\u00a0 They had their human faults just like us.\u00a0 In declaring them saints, the church says they strived to live the good Christian life and as such as examples for us.<\/p>\n

We have two good examples this week.\u00a0 On Thursday (March 17th), we celebrated the Memorial of St. Patrick.\u00a0 St. Patrick is one of the more well-known saints.\u00a0 He was born in Scotland to a Christian family.\u00a0 Around the age of fourteen, he was taken as a slave to Ireland to tend flocks.\u00a0 He prayed for his release.\u00a0 It was six years before he could escape.\u00a0 Through that time, he kept the faith and when he was finally able to escape and\u00a0answered the call to become a priest.\u00a0 He was later named a bishop and sent to Ireland.\u00a0 He could have resisted going back to Ireland because of the memories of his time there as a slave but he did not.\u00a0 The people were mostly Druids and pagans and he worked hard to bring the Christian faith to them.\u00a0 In his faithfulness to God during his slavery and his ministry to the very people who enslaved him, St. Patrick is an example of discipleship to us.<\/p>\n

Today (March 19th), we celebrate the Solemnity of St. Joseph.\u00a0 Today’s Gospel<\/a>, tells the story of how Joseph became the father of Jesus.\u00a0 Mary had been betrohed to him, but before they were together, she became pregnant.\u00a0 Thinking she had been unfaithful Joseph sought to divorce her because he desired to live as God calls all of us to live.\u00a0 Then, the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream to tell him it was God’s will for him to take Mary into his home and raise Jesus as his son.\u00a0 That was enough for Joseph.\u00a0 As long as it was God’s will, he would do it.\u00a0 He is example of faithful discipleship to us.<\/p>\n

There are many saints who are examples to us of discipleship.\u00a0 You might search for one who is the example you need and pray for their intercession.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we think of saints, the first thing that comes to mind is often ‘people that are in heaven.’\u00a0 The second thing that might come to mind is that we pray for their intercession.\u00a0 I emphasize ‘for their intercession’ because we do not pray for the saints to do miracles for us.\u00a0 Rather, we pray …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘The Saints Are Examples To Us’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-7c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}