American Saints: Our Companions o the Journey to Heaven

Each month at the seminary, we are given “free weekends” which we can use as opportunities to travel or visit friends and family. During a free weekend in January, a brother seminarian and myself went to visit a friend in Syracuse, NY. While we were there, we stopped by the St. Marianne Cope shrine and museum for a tour and were surprised by all that we learned about this incredible American saint we previously knew nothing about.

After this great pilgrimage stop, it caused us to reflect on the other American saints. According to the USCCB, there are fifteen American saints and blesseds. There are also many more American men and women whose causes for sainthood have been opened. In exploring the list, it's extraordinary how little we knew about these holy Americans.

Even the names that we knew, like St. Katherine Drexel or St. Damien of Molokai, we did not know what their personalities were like, the extent of their prayer life, or anything they might have said or written. We had reduced their character entirely to general things they had accomplished. St. Damien helped the lepers, and St. Katherine helped minority children. We knew these saints were much more complicated individuals, and the reason for their sanctity was not found only in their work but in their whole lives. We decided to learn more about them, and were surprised by how widely available the material is! America is part of the New World, and, as such, the Church is still relatively young here. It makes sense that there are less saints from the New World and that we are not as familiar with them since many of them are so recently canonized. However, because we are relatively modern in the Church’s history, we have more records of these saints. We have access to many of their personal diaries, journals, and in many cases, we have actual photographs and relics of them!

Some of these saints lived even within the last one hundred years. It is much easier for us to envision what these saints were like and what their sanctity looked like due to this abundance of materials. The grounds they worked on, walked on, or were martyred on, and the missions, Churches, hospitals, and orders they founded still exist today and are visitable. There are shrines for these saints all around the country and it's possible to make pilgrimages there. There is even a Marian Apparition site in America! The Church in America has produced incredible fruit in these saints, and these saints have planted seeds through their lives and witness that contribute to the constant growth of the Church. Seminarians studying to be priests in America can learn much from the examples and lives of these American saints. They are our predecessors in this country, and the fruit of their lives has had a direct impact on the Catholic faith in America and has directed the Church in America toward understanding its mission. It is a mission of radical service ordered toward building the Kingdom of Heaven in the here and now by letting the light of the faith radiate every aspect of life. Reflecting on that free weekend pilgrimage opportunity, I can say sincerely that my brother seminarian and I were astounded and edified by the life of an American saint. We felt we had made a new friend.

The saints are our dear friends and companions on our road to heaven. They inspire us with their sanctity and intercede for us from the triumph and glory of Heaven we hope to one day share. We strive to learn more about our American saints so that we can imitate their example and thus strengthen our own faith and realize that the path to holiness is possible, in this very country and in our own day.

Pope Francis, the first pope from the New World, had this to say about the saints:

“The Saints of all times, whom today we celebrate all together, are not simply symbols, distant, unreachable human beings. On the contrary, they are people who lived with their feet on the ground; they experienced the daily toil of existence with its successes and failures, finding in the Lord the strength to rise again and again, and to continue on their journey.” – Pope Francis, Angelus, 1st, November 2019.

Joseph Angsten is a College III seminarian for the Diocese of Arlington.