Just last week we celebrated All Saints Day. As you know, certain individual saints are remembered on specific days of the year. For example, we celebrate the feast of St. Bernadette on April 16. The feast of St. Louis IX, the patron of our Archdiocese is August 25. The feast of St. Michael the Archangel was September 29.

According to Catholic-Online, there are 18 saints and 1 blessed whose feast days fall today. Exactly half of them were martyrs. 2 were Benedictines, 2 were Dominicans and there was 1 Jesuit.

There are 4 abbots and 1 abbess, 4 bishops and 1 archbishop. Only one of the 21 is a woman. One was even an infant who was murdered by his father. That was St. Tremorus. His mother, Triphina is also canonized.

One was excommunicated from the church, then restored to the faith. Obviously he cleaned up his act.

There are 4 French, 3 Germans, 2 Italians and 2 British, and one each from China, Spain, Egypt, Vietnam and Ireland. There are 3 whose nationality is unknown.

In addition to St. Michael the Archangel, there are 21 other Michaels on the church calendar. 12 are saints and 9 are blessed. Ten of them were Japanese martyrs. Blessed Michael Takashita’s feast day is coming up on November 27, Thanksgiving Day this year. Just in case you wanted to send anybody a card.


I mention all this saintly trivia only because it shows the vast number of people and the wide variety who have been recognized over the years as saints by the church. There are roughly 400 saints whose feast days fall in November alone. Most of them are people you’ve never heard of.

The people who have been canonized by the church are just a tiny fraction of the saints who have lived, and are living today.

Each of us is called by God to live a saintly life. Some, like the Blessed Virgin, or Bernadette, or King Louis lead such holy lives that they are chosen for inclusion in the canon of the saints. And, because they were widely recognized for what they did in this life, they are among what I would call the “big saints.” They’re the ones who have churches named after them. They’re the ones who have their own memorials or feasts in the church calendar.

Next are the lesser known saints, the ones who were obviously holy enough to be recognized by the church. But they lacked the public relations skills to get themselves into the “super saint” category. People like St. Amarand or St. Amaranthus. These saints have the one sentence entries in the list of saints. Many of them were martyrs.

Finally, there are the saints who have never been canonized and never will be. But, each one of us knows many of them by name. Surely there are some in this church this morning. And, just because their names will never be recorded in the book of saints in this life, their names are already in the heavenly list of saints. And, that’s the list that counts.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light. In other words, the worldly have their minds focused on what they THINK is important, like money, power and prestige. The dishonest steward would rather be known as an extortionist than as a laborer or a beggar. Even his master, the victim of his scheme, commended him for acting prudently.

But the children of light, the ones whose names are among the saints, aren’t so concerned with the worldly stuff. For them, prudence is one of the seven virtues. It means preparing for the world to come by following Jesus’ instructions. In John’s Gospel he tells us “You are my friends if you do what I tell you.”
As we prepare to receive the gift of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist, let’s think about the saints we’ve known, the ones we know, and maybe the one who is sitting right next to us. And let’s try to model our lives on theirs so that we, too, can be included in the heavenly list of the saints.

Now, let’s stand and ask God for the things we need.