Today, the Catholic Church commemorates the Church Triumphant–the Saints in Heaven. It’s a day to honor our older brothers and sisters in Christ–Church Militant members who went out in a blaze of glory. And that gives us hope for they were sinners who struggled like we do. If they cooperated faithfully with God’s grace every day, living heroically, beginning anew again and again and again… if they became Saints, why not us? Indeed, we are called by God to be Saints–and if so, then God has to give us what we need to accomplish His Purpose.

Here’s what the Saints have to tell us:

If anyone comes to me, I want to lead them to Him.

~ Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.

~ St. Francis of Assisi

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.

~ Saint Augustine

Don’t you see that Satan and his agents take possession of all inventions and all achievements of progress to convert them to evil? All the more reason to finally wake up and and get to work in order to reconquer the positions taken up by the enemy.

~ St. Maximilian Kolbe

Prayer is the place of refuge for every worry, a foundation for cheerfulness, a source of constant happiness, a protection against sadness.

~ St. John Chrysostom

It is not hard to obey when we love the one whom we obey.

~ Saint Ignatius

Mount Calvary is the academy of love.

~ St. Francis de Sales

Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.

~ Saint Teresa

Without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace. The gift of grace increases as the struggle increases.

~ St. Rose of Lima

Where sin was hatched, let tears now wash the nest.

~ St. Robert Southwell

You know that our Lord does not look at the greatness or difficulty of our action, but at the love with which you do it. What, then, have you to fear?

~ St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, OCD

“Don’t say, ‘That’s the way I am—its my character.’ It’s your lack of character. Esto vir!—Be a man!”

~ St. Josemaria Escriva

To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth, that is not living but existing.

~ Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

“Love to be real, it must cost—it must hurt—it must empty us of self.”

~ Blessed Mother Teresa