Catholic Saints

Hello, We have all heard about saints, but what I want to point out are Catholic saints, there are thousands of saints in the Catholic Church. Other religions also have saints like Islam and Hinduism but I think the difference is that some Catholic saints are reported to have done miracles or have visions, there is plenty of information on Catholic saints and some of their lives are fully detailed. The things that stand out the most to me is that some of them are shown heaven, hell and purgatory. Take the following for example, it is taken from reflectingonthebeach.blogspot.com...

"I saw two roads. One was broad, covered with sand and flowers, full of joy, music and all sorts of pleasures. People walked along it, dancing and enjoying themselves. They reached the end without realizing it. And at the end of the road there was a horrible precipice; that is, the abyss of hell. The souls fell blindly into it; as they walked, so they fell. And their number was so great that it was impossible to count them. And I saw the other road, or rather, a path, for it was narrow and strewn with thorns and rocks; and the people who walked along it had tears in their eyes, and all kinds of suffering befell them. Some fell down upon the rocks, but stood up immediately and went on. At the end of the road there was a magnificent garden filled with all sorts of happiness and all these souls entered there. At the very first instant they forgot all their sufferings" (Diary 153).

"Today, I was led by an Angel to the chasms of hell. It is a place of great torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is! The kinds of tortures I saw: the first torture that constitutes hell is the loss of God; the second is perpetual remorse of conscience; the third is that one’s condition will never change; the fourth is the fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it, a terrible suffering, since it is a purely spiritual fire, lit by God’s anger; the fifth torture is conditional darkness and a terrible suffocating smell, and despite the darkness, the devils and the souls of the damned see each other and all the evil, both of others and their own; the sixth torture is the constant company of satan, the seventh torture is horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses and blasphemies. These are the tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of the sufferings. There are special tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings, related to the manner in which it has sinned. There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me. Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout all eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin. I am writing this at the command of God, so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like. I, sister Faustina, by the order of God, have visited the abysses of hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence. I cannot speak about it now; but I have received a command from God to leave it in writing. The devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God. What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: that most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell. When I came to, I could hardly recover from the fright. How terribly souls suffer there! Consequently, I pray even more fervently for the conversion of sinners. I incessantly plead God’s mercy upon them. O my Jesus, I would rather be in agony until the end of the world, amidst the greatest sufferings, then offend You by the least sin." (Diary 741).

The following is taken from www.overcomeproblems.com...

St. Catherine of Siena (d. 1380) was noted by Bl. Raymond of Capua that once during Holy Mass he turned and saw that St. Catherine's face "had become like an angel's and was sending out bright rays of light".

St. Francis of Paola (d. 1507) once stayed in the castle of King Ferrante of Naples. During the evening the king peeked through the door where the Saint was staying and found him not only levitating in the air, but also his whole body glowing with light.

Another miraculous phenomena reported with Catholic Saints very frequently is the phenomena of levitation. This phenomena has been witnessed time and time again by many people and involves a Saint or holy person rising off the ground for extended periods of time. This phenomena has usually occurred while the Saint or holy person was in a state of deep prayer or ecstasy, or other deeply devout circumstance such as during the consecration of the Holy Eucharist at Mass.

Miraculous Transport refers to the phenomenon where a Saint or holy person at one time or another moved about in unusual ways, such as arriving at a location with unusual speed, or via an unlikely method, or having arrived at a location without being aware of it.

An example of this is when St. Ammon the Great (d. 350) was walking with St. Athanasius and they came to a stream they planned to cross. However the water had risen and there was no way to walk across. Suddenly Ammon was trasported to the other side of the stream! St. Athanasius refers to this incident in his writings in "Life of St. Antony".

Stigmatists are those Saints and holy persons whose bodies mysteriously bore wounds corresponding to those suffered by Jesus Christ during his Passion and Crucifixion. What makes these wounds different from ordinary wounds is that they only appear on devout Catholics, they appear in the same areas as Jesus' well-known wounds, and they remain with the Saint for his/her lifetime without ever healing. Many Saints had the 5 wounds of the crucifixion while others had other wounds such as those from a crown of thorns, or the wound on the shoulder such as Jesus had from carrying the cross. Some wounds never bled, others bled only on Fridays, holy days or at other specific times.


What i want to ask is, are the stories of the countless of Catholic saints fiction or not. If just a few of them are true does it mean that Catholicism is the true religion/the truth. ?

The miracle is rooted in the human potential, not the religion they follow. Thus there is no true religion, but that religion which seeks to reveal the image of God in the self of men.

I love reading about saints both east and west. I am readin autobiography of a yogi right now probably one of my favorite books

reply to post by 0thetrooth0


ALL Of Christ's believers will be saints, not just a handful. As per the specific tortures for people that have commited certain sins, that is the medievel church's propaganda to keep the peasants in line. The power to heal and perform miracles does not come from the believer, it comes from the Holy Spirit. As long as he is in the world there can still be miracle healing, the faith the size of a mustard seed is all he needs to work his miracles.

Sin is sin, there are no varying degrees of punishment for sin. The wages of sin is death....the spiritual death, period. Where this is negated is by faith in Christ and his grace. When he died on the cross for your sins that negated the price you paid...the price of the spiritual death.

The Apostles Barnabas, Paul, Peter and James declared with the Holy Spirit upon them that the gentiles should not have the yoke of the laws of Moses and the ritual of circumsicion hanged about their necks to be saved. Their forefathers (the Israelites) couldn't even bear that yoke and they didn't want to put it on us. Do you still need to know the laws of Moses? For personal introspection you can, but Christ fulfilled those laws. He didn't do away with the old laws, he just covers our asses if we break them so we do not pay the price of the spiritual death. Man couldn't even keep the laws of Moses so he had to give us an even simpler covenant, just to believe in him because he is the Word, the living Law, God in person.

Following up to what lonewolf said about ALL believers being saints, here is some advice from Elder Paisios of Mt. Athos "Epistles":

"Neither is it profitable for you to simply like to read and stand in admiration of the Saints. Worldly people do as much when in suspense they read the new adventures of Tarzan and are entertained. Our purpose, however, is spiritual and little by little we must compel ourselves by struggling in the life of the Holy Fathers."