The Summer season is replete with liturgical feasts of many noteworthy saints, including Saints Aloysius Gonzaga, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, Benedict, Bonaventure, Mary Magdalene, James the Greater, Joaquim and Anne, Martha, Mary and Lazurus, Ignatius of Loyola, Alphonsus Liguori, John Vianney, Dominic, Clare and Lawrence, Maximilian Kolbe, Augustine, John Chrysostom and Matthew, to mention the most well-known.
The roll call of saints is always an opportunity to recount the “great cloud of witnesses,” as Scripture calls them, and to ask for their intercession for our needs and intentions.
In addition to that, the saints are role models on which to base our lives. We most likely won’t end up as Church-endorsed canonized saints, but that doesn’t matter. We are all called to become saints by doing God’s will day in and day out.
To be the best person we possibly can be has nothing to do with health, wealth, beauty or anything other than an open heart and mind.
May the saints of God help us in this crucial endeavor!
Today’s photo is of a liturgical shepherd’s staff, called a crozier, carried by bishops and abbots for solemn celebrations of the Mass. This particular crozier is from Montecassino Abbey in Italy, where Saint Benedict spent his last years. The image in the crook is Saint Benedict himself.
Saints of God, intercede for us!
Abbot Christian and the monks
