The Path To Sainthood
The Catholic church has people who are designated Saints. So what does that mean. And why or how do they come to the conclusion that they are Saints. The Saints are a group of people that by their actions, including martyrdom, are known to be in heaven without any doubt. The Saints go back to the first Pope, Peter. The list includes the twelve apostles and St. Paul. Those are the earliest Saints know.
There are three levels a saint must pass though on the road to sainthood. They are Venerated, Beatified, and Blessed and the process can stall at any point, leaving the person locked at that level indefinitely.
As with all things in the Catholic church there is a process in how the saint is elevated to blessed and to saint. The first requirement to being a Saint is to be dead. It makes sense because after all if you are not dead you cannot be in Heaven.
The heroic virtue element is necessary or martyrdom. A martyr is a person who has died for being Christian, died because of their belief in God and in essence died for the faith. In the United States there is not much dying for the Faith going on. However, there is plenty Martyrdom going on in China, Africa, the Philippines and South America and even Iraq. There have been news stories on how of late on the persecution of Christians in Iraq and how the priests in that area are being slaughtered. This would be modern martyrdom.
Heroic Virtue are the virtues we were all taught in school. They are faith hope and charity and prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. If you think about the saint you will easily find at least one of these virtues. Take St. Vincent DePaul being the Apostle of Charity. We should all strive to meet these virtues in our own life
