By Fr. Glenn Jones:
You may have seen in the Santa Fe New Mexican on Jan. 4 a story about the possibility of a nun with local connections being considered for a declaration of sainthood. Sister Blandina Segale, a Sister of Charity, worked in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and the surrounding area in the latter 1800s through the early 1900s, establishing hospitals and schools and caring for many. The cause for her to be declared a saint is progressing, though it has quite a journey yet.
When hearing about the process of a person being declared a saint, sometimes we hear people speaking of the Church “making him/her a saint”, which is quite wrong; a person becomes a saint by living—supported by God’s grace—a Godly life, loving God and neighbor to the best of their ability, following the teaching of Jesus as best as they understand. But it is not for anyone—whether pauper or pope—to “make” someone a saint; only God knows complete a person’s heart, abilities, understanding, etc., and thus it’s only for Him to “make” a saint in the sense of bringing him/her to eternal life with Him. As St. Paul writes: “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Master is able to make him stand.” (Romans 14:3-4)
No doubt, if we are given such definitive knowledge of others in the afterlife, we’ll no doubt be surprised at who “made it” … and who didn’t.
What happens in the process of the Church declaring someone a saint is an exhaustive review of the person’s life, and a progression in stages from “Servant of God” to “Venerable” to “Blessed” to “Saint”. It’s nowhere as easy as just saying “Bob was a good guy”, but rather the person had to have lived a life of “heroic virtue”. As the process proceeds to its final stages, the Church awaits “confirmation” of the person’s status via some miracles coming through the saint’s intercession. And miracles, too, and not given simple perfunctory acceptance, but they—like the saint’s life—are scrutinized very minutely by professionals in the related field, and are usually medical healings which do not have a scientific explanation—immediate disappearances of diagnosed advanced cancers, for instance. The scoffer may scoff, but he’d do better to look into such occurrences first before dismissing them out of hand.
“But only God performs miracles!”, a person might object. Yes, of course. But as we intercede for others by our prayers to God, so do the saints; otherwise, what would be the purpose of us praying for anyone? And are we not encouraged to pray for one another: “… pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects,” (James 5:16) Who is more righteous than the saints themselves? Even in Jesus’ parable of poor Lazarus (Luke 16), even the condemned rich man in the afterlife is concerned for his relatives; with how much more care would those living in the eternal beatitude.
But Blandina would not be the first declared saint with a New Mexico background; there IS already another—St. Katherine Drexel, who once lived in Santa Fe and may have visited all sorts of nearby places—especially native villages such as Pojoaque, Tesuque, Nambé, Santa Clara, Ohkay Owingeh, and other pueblos and towns.
Born in 1858 into a prominent Philadelphia family, she early took special interest in the material and spiritual well-being of black and Native Americans, and founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to work with them. Then from the age of 33 until her death in 1955 at age 97, she dedicated her life and inherited fortune of 20 million dollars to this work.
In 1894, Mother Drexel helped open the first mission school for natives here in New Mexico—the St. Catherine Indian School (named after St. Catherine of Siena, not after herself), which operated until 1998 in Santa Fe. She also founded organizations primarily for natives west of the Mississippi River, and for blacks in the southern part of the U.S., founding Xavier University in New Orleans in 1915.
At her death her order had more than 500 Sisters teaching in 63 schools throughout the country, and she was canonized in 2000, the second canonized American-born saint. She grew up rich, but she knew (as all the saints know) that wealth in the end avails nothing unless used for good, and she understood the wisdom of working not for this life, but rather for the next by devotion to God and neighbor.
In this Katherine Drexel understood and lived, as did another American woman saint, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton did before her, as Elizabeth wrote: “And what was the first rule of our dear Savior’s life? You know it was to do his Father’s will. Well, then, the first end I propose in our daily work is to do the will of God; secondly, to do it in the manner he wills; and thirdly, to do it because it is his will…” (Office of Readings for January 4)
Certainly one of the best resolutions we might find for the new year … and always. For, as St. Elizabeth continues: “You are children of eternity. Your immortal crown awaits you, and the best of Fathers waits there to reward your duty and love. You may indeed sow here in tears, but you may be sure there to reap in joy.”
Editor’s note: Rev. Glenn Jones is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Los Alamos.