You Are (Already) A Saint: Reflections after All Saints Day

Growing up Protestant, I harbored a certain wariness—even distaste—toward Catholic and Orthodox veneration of saints. Like many, I feared it bordered on idolatry, confusing worship that should be reserved for God alone.

But I've come to see that traditional veneration of saints points to something profound: our own future glory.

Paul opens his letter to the Corinthians addressing them as "saints who are becoming saints." This peculiar phrasing captures a beautiful tension—we are already counted among the holy ones, yet we're still growing into that reality.

As we just celebrated All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and All Hallows Eve (Halloween), I'm struck by how these observances remind us that we have thousands of years of saints to remember. But more than just remembering, we're participating in a living communion.

Jesus himself emphasized this when confronting the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection. He declared that God is "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"—not was, but is. God is the God of the living, not the dead. Our ancestors in faith aren't gone; they're more alive than ever.

This points to something remarkable about God's ultimate purpose for us. The Divine doesn't seek to absorb us into some cosmic consciousness, erasing our individuality. Instead, God confirms and completes our unique personhood. As Karl Rahner notes, "The real God does not need to reduce us to nothing."

The old-fashioned, traditional Catholic practice of venerating the saints is something which still stands ahead of us almost like the distant goal of our own religious development, as a higher future. It means real, genuine, living realization of the fact that they exist, that they are living and powerful, that they are nearer to us than ever, that they are not absorbed by God but are confirmed by him, that he is truly the God of the living and not of the dead, that far from being destroyed if we approach him, it is only then that we attain our own plenitude and independence, for the real God does not need to reduce us to nothing.

When we approach God, we don't lose ourselves—we find our true selves.

The traditional practice of venerating saints, then, isn't behind us as some primitive superstition. Rather, it stands ahead of us as a vision of our own future development. It reminds us that the saints are "living and powerful...nearer to us than ever." They haven't been absorbed into God but confirmed in their unique identity.

This realization gives me hope and momentum in my own spiritual journey. When we remember the saints—that great cloud of witnesses—we're not just looking backward. We're looking forward to what we're becoming. We're saints today who will one day be fully saints, remembered and honored by those who come after us.

God's goal isn't our destruction but our glorification. Not our diminishment, but our completion. Not our absorption, but our confirmation as unique persons bearing the divine image.

You are a saint becoming a saint. And that's not just comfort for today—it's fuel for tomorrow.