This month I’ve been trying to build something, Scripture as the ground, the sacraments, and learning to actually pray instead of just meaning to. This week I want to spend some time with the people who already did it, who built a life on that same foundation and watched it hold.

Hebrews talks about being surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and for a long time that sounded like a nice turn of phrase to me, not something I actually believed. Lately I’ve started reading it differently. Those weren’t theoretical people. They were ordinary men and women who knelt where I kneel, were tempted the way I’m tempted, and kept building anyway, and somehow it held.

I don’t think I’m meant to just admire them from a distance. I think I’m meant to let them show me it’s actually possible, and maybe even show me how.

So here’s where I’ll leave it today, since it’s a quieter kind of day. Is there a saint I already know a little about, one I’ve heard the name of a hundred times but never actually let teach me anything? What would change if I did?

Today’s Bible Study

Paul doesn’t tell the Corinthians to admire him from a distance. He tells them to imitate him, and he’s specific about why that even works, because he’s imitating Christ himself. That’s most of the relationship between us and the saints in one line. They’re not the destination, Christ is. But they’re proof that imitating him is possible for someone with a real, complicated life, not just an idea on a page. This week, when a saint’s story stirs up something in me, I want to ask a sharper question than usual. Not whether it’s impressive, but what they actually did, and whether I could do that too.

Recommended Reading

If you want to actually meet these people instead of just hearing their names, Butler’s Lives of the Saints has been sitting on my shelf longer than I’ve bothered to open it. I’m planning to finally start this week, one saint at a time.