Called to Be Saints

Holiness Beyond the Halo

When people hear the word saint, they often picture marble statues, stained-glass halos, or extraordinary men and women whose holiness seems far removed from ordinary life. The Catholic understanding of sainthood, however, begins with something much closer to home: the call of every Christian to become holy.

The canonized saints show what a life transformed by grace can become. Their lives differ greatly, but each responded to God's grace through faith, conversion, sacrifice, prayer, and charity. They remind us that holiness is not reserved for a small spiritual elite. It is the vocation of every baptized Christian.

Understanding sainthood requires us to look beyond public recognition and examine the deeper meaning of holiness found in Scripture, Catholic theology, and the life of the Church.

Historical and Religious Context

The Catholic Church uses the word saint in more than one context. Scripture speaks broadly of the faithful as holy ones, while the Church gives the title Saint to particular men and women whose holiness has been formally recognized through canonization.

The earliest Christian communities did not have the detailed canonization process used by the Church today. Martyrs were especially honored because they had given their lives rather than deny Christ. Local Christian communities preserved their memories, celebrated the anniversaries of their deaths, and gathered at their tombs for prayer and the Eucharist.

As devotion to holy men and women spread, the Church gradually developed a more formal process for investigating claims of sanctity. Today, a cause ordinarily moves through several stages that may include the titles Servant of God, Venerable, Blessed, and Saint. The requirements for beatification and canonization depend on the nature of the cause, including whether the person is recognized as a martyr.

The formal process developed over centuries, but its purpose remains connected to an ancient Christian practice: recognizing lives that bear exceptional witness to Christ and holding them before the faithful as examples of holiness.

What “Saint” Means in the Bible

Long before the Church developed a formal process of canonization, Scripture spoke of God's people as holy. The Greek word hagios, commonly translated as “holy” or “saint,” carries the idea of being consecrated or set apart for God.

The roots of this idea reach into the Old Testament, where Israel was called to be a people consecrated to God. In the New Testament, this calling is understood in the light of Jesus Christ. Those united to Christ are called to a new life shaped by grace and holiness.

When Saint Paul addresses “all the saints in Christ Jesus” in Philippians 1:1, he is speaking to members of the Christian community. He is not claiming that every person addressed had already attained heroic sanctity. Rather, they belonged to Christ and had been called into a holy people.

This biblical use of the word helps explain the foundation of the Catholic call to holiness. Christians receive a holy vocation from God and are called to grow into that vocation throughout their lives.

Saints in the Writings of St. Paul

The writings of the Apostle Paul provide some of the clearest examples of the biblical use of the word saint. Paul regularly addresses Christians as saints or holy ones, including communities whose members were still struggling with serious moral and spiritual problems.

The Corinthians are an important example. Paul speaks of Christians as those “called to be holy,” yet much of his correspondence corrects division, scandal, disorder, and failures of charity within the community. Their calling to holiness did not mean that the work of conversion was complete.

For Paul, God's grace comes first, but grace calls for a response. Christians have been consecrated to God and must increasingly conform their lives to Christ. Holiness is both a gift and a vocation that unfolds through continued conversion.

Old Testament Foundations of Sainthood

The Christian call to holiness has deep roots in God's covenant with Israel. In Exodus 19:5–6, God tells the Israelites that they are to become “a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” Leviticus likewise repeatedly calls God's people to holiness because the Lord Himself is holy.

To be set apart for God involved worship, obedience, covenant fidelity, and a distinctive way of life. Israel's holiness was meant to reflect the holiness of the God who had chosen and delivered them.

The New Testament carries this language forward. In 1 Peter 2:9, Christians are described as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” The language of Israel's vocation is applied to the Church, now understood in the light of Christ.

The call to holiness is not an isolated New Testament idea. It belongs to the larger biblical story of God forming a people who are His own and calling them to reflect His holiness in the world.

Theological Perspective on Sainthood

Catholic theology understands holiness as the work of divine grace in the human person. We cannot make ourselves holy by our own power. God takes the initiative, gives grace, and draws us into communion with Him. At the same time, grace does not eliminate human freedom. The Christian is called to receive God's gift and cooperate with it.

• Holiness as gift begins with God. Through Christ, we are called into communion with Him and receive the grace necessary for the Christian life. As Ephesians 1:4 teaches, God chose us in Christ “that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
• Holiness as growth is the lifelong work of sanctification. Through prayer, the sacraments, acts of charity, repentance, obedience, and cooperation with grace, the Christian is gradually conformed more closely to Christ.

These two dimensions belong together. Holiness is God's gift, but that gift calls for a real human response. The lives of the saints show what can happen when men and women repeatedly surrender themselves to grace and allow Christ to reshape their lives.

Implications for Modern Believers

The universal call to holiness means that sainthood cannot be treated merely as something belonging to distant centuries or extraordinary religious figures. Holiness is lived in the circumstances God gives each person.

For most Christians, that means faithfulness in ordinary responsibilities: prayer when life is busy, patience within the family, honesty at work, forgiveness after conflict, care for the poor, fidelity to the sacraments, and the courage to live according to the Gospel when doing so is difficult.

These actions may never attract public attention, but holiness has never depended upon fame. Many saints lived much of their lives in obscurity. What mattered was their fidelity to God.

The Christian call is not to escape ordinary life, but to allow ordinary life to become a place of sanctification. Family, work, suffering, friendship, service, prayer, and sacrifice can all become places where grace bears fruit.

From Scripture to Modern Faith

Scripture's language of the “saints” reminds Christians that they belong to a people consecrated to God. The Church's canonized saints show how this calling can bear fruit when a person responds faithfully to grace.

Their stories are not valuable because the saints never struggled. Many endured temptation, failure, suffering, uncertainty, persecution, or long periods of spiritual difficulty. What distinguished them was their persistent return to God and their willingness to be transformed.

The saints matter to Christians today because they show that holiness can take shape in many lives and circumstances. Some were priests or religious. Others were married, widowed, young, old, wealthy, poor, educated, or largely unknown during their lifetimes.

The call remains the same for every Christian: receive God's grace, remain close to Christ, repent when you fall, and continue growing in holiness. The saints who have gone before us remind us that this calling is not merely an ideal. By the grace of God, it can be lived.