Catholic view of Biblical saints

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I am a Catholic, and though I'm certainly not professing to be an expert on doctrine... the answer I've been given goes along the lines that The Catholic church will not declare that any given deceased individual is in Hell (or not in Heaven) as we can't know the forgiveness of our Lord, but that there are individuals who, after careful examination of their earthly deeds and the fruits of their lives, we believe are in Heaven - those individuals we refer to as Saints. It is (or should be) the goal of every Christian to become a saint after their death, and therefore to believe and behave in as saintly a manor as possible throughout their life.

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I'm not Catholic. Some of my fellow Protestants do criticize the Catholic church on this point. Personally, I think it's not a big deal, it's just a case of using a word with two slightly different meanings.

Like, forms that asks for your address typically ask for street, city, state, zip. "City" here clearly means the name of the community you live in, regardless of size. But in other contexts we use "city" to refer to a particularly large population center, like New York or Los Angeles. So the word "city" has (at least) two related but distinct meanings: any population center, or a particularly large population center.

In the same way, "saints" is used to refer to any Christian, and is also used by the Catholic church to refer to Christians who have demonstrated particularly extraordinary faith.

I'd be interested in hearing a more detailed response from a knowledgeable Catholic.

Upvote:3

If you look up the catholic Liturgy, you will find that their understanding of holiness is not so narrow. They still sing from Didache "who is holy may he draw near" and in the greek catholic Liturgy the priest says before communion "Holy things for the holy" (the answer begins with "One is holy..." as to remember that human can be holy only by grace, not by his or her merits)

Also the RC theology says much on idea of "sanctifying grace" which is not something reserved to canonized saints.

So it is a myth that Roman Catholic theology refuses to admit the term "holy/saint" as something every Christian can and should attain. They simply don't go around saying proudly "I'm holy" but prefer to use this word to show respect to people that surpass them in faith and good deeds.

Upvote:4

I was reading this while writing this months blog article on "What is the Church"

"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." The Church, then, is "the holy People of God," and her members are called "saints."

CCC 823

Curiously enough, we Catholics hold that everyone is more or less in the Catholic Church; otherwise the church wouldn't be universal, which is to say, catholic.

So, it may be fallacious reasoning, but I like to think that we the living, are all saints and those who are dead are hopefully saints because all things are possible with God.

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