Lisa, 20, American Whovian, Nerdfighter, Ravenclaw, and biology nerd. Cards I carry: geek, bookworm, would-be poet, Bleeding-Heart Liberal (tm), non-binary + genderqueer + everything else ally, Jewish, and atheist. Ask anything you like. ^_^

20th December 2011

Post with 4 notes

I have a question about saints.

So I was reading this article (Native American saints! Hooray representation of all peoples!) and it talks a bit about how you need a papal bull and recognition of miracles and all these other things in order to be a saint. So I was wondering about the process. Before you get canonized by the Pope and worshiped on Earth and etc., are you already a saint in Heaven? Like, are you hanging around, performing postmortem miracles, waiting for the Pope to catch on and make you official so you start getting the prayers you merit? Or are you just a normal person in Heaven, chilling and whatnot, until being canonized on Earth gives you increased scope and access to the Big Three (or Mary, or whoever), so you can intercede more effectively? If the latter, how are you performing miracles in order to get canonized? Do all people in Catholic Heaven have the ability to perform miracles, and we just don’t notice most of them?

I realize there’s no real answer to this, but I was curious about it. If anyone knows about an official Catholic ruling on this, I’d love to hear it. Thoughts?

Tagged: catholicismcatholicsaintspopereligionchristianitytheologythinky thoughtscanonizationnative peoplenative americanskateri tekakwitha

  1. worthfacinganyfear answered: Everyone who is in heaven is a saint. :) Some are just recognized for their heroic deeds done for God. :)
  2. fathershane answered: Right, it’s just about “recognition” of holiness so that all of us get inspired to follow Christ heroically and unconditionally too!
  3. crusadermaximus answered: Everyone is heaven is a saint. Those who the Church recognizes as Saints are those we recognize as being in Heaven. They are already there :)
  4. neornithes posted this