"What if Holiness is a Friendship You Accept?" | July 19, 2026

A martyr’s anniversary is not just a date on a calendar, it is a spiritual mirror. As we approach the 45th anniversary of Blessed Stanley Rother’s martyrdom, we slow down and ask what his witness still does to the Church today, from Oklahoma to Guatemala, and why we keep praying for his canonization. We also get practical about language: canonization is not a mystical shortcut or a hype machine. It is the Church recognizing a real holiness that can guide all of us toward the goodness of God. 

We also make an important distinction between imitating and duplicating. A saint’s holiness should animate your life, not dictate your alarm clock, and the John Wesley example shows why copying details can miss the point while still leaving the heart unchanged. 

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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

Transcript

Anniversary Of A Modern Martyr

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This is living Catholic faith with Father Donald. Father Don Wolf.

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Welcome, Oklahoma, to Living Catholic. I'm Monsignor Don Wolfe, rector of the shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother. This year, on the 28th of July, we celebrate the 45th anniversary of the martyrdom of Blessed Stanley Rother. As these years have gone by, we can pause to appreciate the meaning of his witness to the presence of the gospel among us, as well as the enormous impact of his life and that his life and death has made on the life of the Church in the United States and in Guatemala. As we approach this date, we also have the opportunity to focus on its meaning in the life of faith that we participate in every day. This anniversary isn't simply a moment in history covered over by the passage of the years. It's a living example of what it is to be in Christ, an example to animate all of us. At this time, we pray for Blessed Stanley's canonization. As we said last week, this isn't a gigantic mystical energy that suddenly fills the empty spaces of his life. It's a procedure by which the whole church formally recognizes the true holiness of a person's life, holiness available to the entire panoply of those who wish to follow Jesus. This is what we long for in our recognition of Blessed Stanley's life, that it might be a shining light in the darkness of our age, so that it can guide us to be closer to the goodness of God among us. Our shrine and all that attends our work there is so that we can gather the attention of anyone who might look and see what's there. By looking, they might find what they've overlooked or just never noticed before. We want Blessed Stanley to become Saint Stanley Rother for the entire church. But as we contemplate his amazing story and as

What Canonization Really Recognizes

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we seek to share it as widely as we can, we should pause for a moment to understand the role of a saint in the life of our own faithfulness. This is highlighted especially among us here in our environment, in which so many people do not affirm saints or recognize how important they are to us. We strive to encounter Christ and to bring that encounter into every part of life. Saints are part of our striving. The truth is the same with regard to saints as it is with so much of church teaching. That is, it's a truth everyone recognizes and affirms, even if they reject the words and the images commonly associated with it. We Catholics have to define what we mean and what's important when we mention canonization and saintliness, because many people simply reject our teachings and our piety. But in truth, everyone knows that there are great examples of brave holiness and amazing accomplishments in every branch of Christian living. These are examples everyone is invited to learn from and to emulate. Were it not for the overt reaction of rejection of the vocabulary and confidence of the cult of the saints, most people in most churches would embrace everything we know about honoring and being inspired by the great men and women who fill our history. So what are the attributes of saints? What should we hold on to when we think about the saints who are part of our piety and our practice? We're bound to be asked what saintliness really is. This will be especially true when Blessed Stanley is canonized. We should have a ready response. We're united in the hope that we will be called upon to explain this fact of the recognition of his saintliness soon. It's not too early to prepare ourselves. Not only that, as we approach the anniversary of his martyrdom, we should open our minds and hearts to all that his saintliness

Five Attributes To Remember

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has for us. There are, in my estimation, at least five attributes that we should remember. The first is that the saints are our friends. This isn't always at the forefront of our thinking, but it should be. Saints are part of our journey to the fullness of life in Christ. We should do all we can to embrace them for what they are for us. In all confidence, we can invite them along for the journey of our life. As friends, they join us in what we do and how we act. As we all know, our friends are not identical to us. In fact, we're likely not to bond to someone exactly as or who is exactly as we are. Complimentarity is best as we make our way through the world and lean on those around us to fill out what's missing in our own lives. In this, our favorite

Saints As Friends Who Accompany Us

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and most intimate saint might be someone whose life and example is far removed from our circumstance, but who speaks to us in the gift of their accompaniment. For example, I have two favorite saints. The first is Saint Isaac Jogues, missionary to the Iroquois in 17th century Canada. The second is Saint Maria Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein, a German Carmelite sister, a Jewish convert who is ghast at Auschwitz. From when I first heard of their examples, they've both been invitations to me of friendships with them. Ever since I first heard of Saint Isaac Jog's bravery and courage in spreading the gospel to the native peoples of the Northwest Woods, I've been intrigued by his story, his willingness to forgo his native France for the wilds of North America, his commitment to the people he came to know, his desire to fill the hearts of those who had never heard of Christ with the promise of eternal life. These attributes piqued my imagination as a child and drew me to him. In addition to all these other elements of his ministry, he had been captured and tortured by one of the neighboring tribes, escaping only at the last moment and in peril of his life. Returning to France, he agitated to come back, although he knew the price that he could pay in fulfilling his mission. He did return and was martyred. It was heroic in every way, just the kind of thing a boy would leap at the chance to imitate, who could have been more thoroughly manly than Isaac Jogues. I didn't know until much later that an additional element to his bravery and commitment had to do with the price he had paid for his mission work. The torture he endured disfigured his hands because the torture included having some of his fingers cut off one joint at a time. In the canon law of the day, he needed to receive special permission to continue to celebrate Mass in his condition, since the law wanted to ensure that the priesthood did not become the sole provenance of those who were crippled, disabled, disfigured, or incapacitated. The image of him at his altar, handling the elements of the Eucharist with his broken hands and missing fingers fired my imagination at the amazing commitment of his life to those who had not heard the gospel. Even as he was securing the permission to live out his priesthood in France, he was agitating to return to the solace of the primeval forests of Canada. Isaac Jogues was a friend of mine as I grew up and thought about the life of the faith. Like so many of my friends, he was casual. We were not greatly intimate. What he did and how he lived, though, was a mystery to me. But that he was present as part of the life of the faith made my faith richer and deeper. Not only that, all his missionary work achieved was somehow woven into the meager sum of my life. Like all good friends, as we were together, our lives complemented each other. His life didn't my life didn't add to his, of course, but his did add to mine. And one more thing, I never considered that I lived my life all by myself. When I wondered what it would be like to grow up and become something in the world of adulthood, it was good to know there was someone whose example spoke to me of a life bigger and more impressive and deeper than anything I could currently imagine for myself. In the same way that someone who lives in, say, Shawnee, might break might brag that Brad Pitt's grandfather lived down the street from him when he grew up. Brad Pitt was born in Shawnee, so I could feel connected and ennobled by someone whose life had been so transformative and so powerful among those who most needed it. On my own, I'm lost in the ordinariness of the world. Knowing someone whose life prompted hope and commitment from many makes my life into something that matters to me and to others. Edith Stein joined the Carmelite Order and put her talents to work almost immediately, becoming a noted author and thinker in pre-World War II Europe. Having a gifted mind and achieving notoriety for her philosophical contributions, she brought all of her intellectual passions to the convent with her, making her mark in the short time she had to contribute her gifts to the church. One of the greatest female philosophical minds of her generation, and simply one of the most insightful philosophers, male or female, during her productive years, she could reason and communicate as few others could. Her collected works stretch across a wide bookshelf. My friendship is something more than casual with her. I hold her in great respect and true awe, knowing her struggles to discover a way to make her greatest contributions. Receiving a splendid education, her capacities and successes make anything I've done to be as dust. Measuring my puny written corpus to hers, I'm a duffer compared to a pro, a house painter compared to a portrait painter. And yet, I like being around her. She radiates compassion and hope. Her intimacy with God and her understanding of the life of Christ makes her someone to stay with. Things are better when she's there and is a part of what's going on. When she's around, it's an occasion to smile, even when she's speaking in a manner I don't much understand. Friendship isn't just about paling around or wasting time together. Certainly it can be that in its context, but it's also finding a like mind and common interest, finding goals and goodness in common. That's what I find in Edith Stein. She's mostly unlike me in every way, and I would never measure up to what she did, but I like her, and I like being around all she did. Our friendship with the saints doesn't mean that we'll become them or become like them. I don't strive to be a missionary. My passions do not include finding myself in the impenetrable woods or among the library stacks in solemn German universities. And yet, these saints are friends of mine. I treasure them and all they did. Above all, I want to be around them so that their differences might rub off on me. I want to be like them because they're so likable. Saints invite us to friendship in the best way.

Saints As Models Without Copying

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The next attribute of saints is that they are our models. This is one element of their relationship with us that's the most obvious and the most powerful. When we look at the saints and the living of their holiness, we're motivated to do better, to live well, and to serve God more completely. Saints are the way we begin to grow what it might be, we begin to know what it might be like to live the promise of God's graces in our lives, since they lived God's graces in their lives. Just look at the example of St. Paul. Even when he was alive, he was the model for much of the church. In fact, as we look at what he did and the content of his communication with the church, we are still being formed by the model of his service and the content of his holiness. We have the letters he sent to various churches in response to their questions about how to live as they ought. Most of what we know about how the church lived out its faithfulness comes through the letters Paul wrote, telling them how he lived. His life was a model of Christian living for the entire generation he lived through. If we want to know what a genuine life in Christ is, we turn to the citations and examples of St. Paul. His saintliness informs us all. And as models, the lives of the saints become what we aspire to. Clearly, we can't duplicate them. Their times come and then go, but we can duplicate their dedication and creativity as they understood and reacted to the challenges of their time. And I'll never pick up stakes and travel the way Saint Paul did, hardly resting anywhere during his entire missionary life. But his desire to share the gospel of Jesus, his willingness to speak into the needs he knew, and his passion for making Jesus known to everyone, those make him an example of what every Christian might become. I can use him as my model for how to live my life in my priesthood. If I could just do that, my life would be complete. As models, they also embody what we're to strive for. They didn't live as angels, they didn't come from heaven to execute God's plan, they don't float above the ground to deliver God's messages. Saints are real people, constrained and challenged by the circumstances of their lives, confronted by the complicated truths of their environment, who go about discerning and then fulfilling God's will in their midst. And while we can't duplicate every part of their lives or imitate all of the details of how they lived, we can look at how they lived. We can learn from them the essence of what it means to be faithful and holy. Knowing their holiness, their examples are models of our own. If we look at the life of Stanley Rother, for example, it becomes evident that we're unable to enter into the details of his life, where he was born, the climate of his youth, the ethic of his parents, the unself aware practice of the faith, the matter-of-fact call to the priesthood, and all of the other circumstances surrounding him, none of these are available to us. But if we look at how he remained faithful to his call, even when every part of his ministry became complicated, we can learn how our lives might remain pristine even when every action we take can be misconstrued, and on and on. In the inner play of his life, he becomes a model for how to make the life of Christ become a true presence in the middle of anguish and suffering. Remember, we don't have to duplicate what a saint is or how he lives. We only have to know his journey has been an authentic imitation of the goodness of Christ. We can think of this in the same way a young man might look at, say, Michael Jordan and his successes. A young athlete might be a hockey forward or a football quarterback, but Michael's ability and discipline becomes the real focus of his attention. The high school athlete never imagines himself becoming the greatest basketball phenom of all time, but what it means to be Michael moves him to make his life larger. Ultimately, the model isn't the minute details of success, but the mere fact of it. That saints are saintly is the ultimate fact worthy of emulation and prompting of imitation. Now we do have to make careful distinctions between imitating and duplicating. It's perfectly fine for a child to put on the airs or even the clothing of the one he wants to be like. A young kid can put on a jersey or wear a polo shirt, thinking he somehow can play soccer like Messi, in case of the jersey, or become like Carlos Acutis, in the case of the polo shirt, if he looks more like him. But an adult who thinks his dreams of athleticism or sanctity can be satisfied by clothes or copies doesn't know what his real model is. Modeling is something more. Several years ago, in a book about growth in priestly piety, an author mentioned how John Wesley first began to grow in his personal spirituality and deepened his awareness of holiness. Wesley, he said, decided he needed to spend more time studying the scriptures and praying. So he endeavored to get up at four o'clock every morning and spend three hours in prayer and meditation. It produced great fruit and changed his life. So, the author asked, should you endeavor to get up at four o'clock every morning in your parish so that you can grow in spiritual awareness as Wesley did? That is, should you duplicate Wesley's decision so as to become an insightful and as passionate and holy as he was? And the answer was, no, of course not. Wesley lived in a coal mining community whose members came in from the mines and were in bed at eight o'clock. There were no evening meetings, no night masses, no additional duties to attend to. He was in bed himself at eight o'clock. Meaning when he got up to begin his studies, he'd slept for eight hours and had three hours of uninterrupted time to himself in the silence of the day. Imitating John Wesley's desire and accomplishment by duplicating his schedule would be ludicrous. Imitate his holiness by finding your own schedule, one that is conformal to your life today. Begin the deepening of your spiritual life by a humane schedule of study and prayer. Don't imagine his saintliness provides a model for how to set your alarm clock. But allow the holiness of the saints to animate. Permit their success in finding their way through life to inspire your way through life. Open yourself to the knowledge that God's goodness is what calls forth saints in every age to inspire, to lead, to surprise, and to become a new example of what true holiness is and can become. Saints are our models.

Saints As Champions In Daily Struggle

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Thirdly, they're our champions. The dead are present to us, and we to them, especially those whom we know, who have been extraordinary in holiness and who are present to the power of the divine. In their humanity, they know us and are intimate in the knowledge of our needs and our struggles. In every part of the corners of our lives, the saint has lived and experienced what we go through. As they journey with us, we trust they rejoice in our potential and urge us onward in our successes. They champion all that we can become. We best imagine this in our patron saints. For example, if a young woman knows that Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton gave birth to five children, she can invoke the prayers of Saint Elizabeth as she goes through the challenges of pregnancy and childbirth. And even more than trusting in her prayers and her spiritual support, she can trust that the saint, by her own example and her continuing presence in this young woman's life, urges her on in the holiness of giving new life and bringing children into the world. Rather than simply enduring the inevitability of pregnancy and motherhood, the young woman is sustained by knowing her saint encountered the holiness of her own life by looking into the face of her children. Certainly this young woman can do the same. Our patrons become our champions. Much more than simply becoming an icon, an image, our saints are living presences who accompany us in the interstices of our choices and our actions. They're not just way stations or transit ports for prayers and graces. They are active, living characters who accompany and sustain us by who they are and what they've done. If there's one thing to learn about the power of saints and their importance in our lives, it is that they are not statues or holy cards. They are living in the presence of God, active in their support of us, and sharing in the challenges and victories of our lives. They are part of our family of faith.

Saints As Intercessors In A Family

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And of course, fourthly, saints are our intercessors. They pray for us. We invoke their prayers continually, and we speak to them in this role, but we seldom actually pay attention to how important this is for us. I think this may be an artifact of our age. Probably it's the product of our religious environment in which we are ruggedly individual, and our spirituality is only about what I decide and what I do and what I say. In other ages, we were much more aware of how we're woven into the whole tapestry of life and community with others. It's this awareness that's most important as we trust the saints to pray for us. We're not simply a group of people making their way through life, stumbling along amid the stones on our journey, doing the best we can with what we have. Much more than making our own way, we're part of a family of faith woven together through history, making the work of grace and the life of Christ a living, breathing presence in the world. By way of our lives, together as a church, we fed the hungry, educated the ignorant, brought hope, relief, and joy to billions of people. And this has been done in Christ's name by a living, breathing people who occupied the corners of their world as we live in the avenues of ours. And we all live or a part of this great work. All that they have done and all their extraordinary holiness now belongs to us. When we invoke their information, Intercession for our needs, along with their presence in our lives, by way of memory and awareness, the product of their graces and works fill our lives. Their responsive prayers come along with the leverage of their work among us. They don't just pray, they're the means by which grace has come into this world that we occupy. When we invoke them, we invoke the entire story of Christian living and its power so that it might be present in our struggles and our challenges. Saints pray for us. The intercession is of graces lived and performed, of lives redirected, of hopes realized, of worlds changed. What could be more powerfully present than their purposeful participation in our lives?

Saints Are Different And That Helps

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And finally, we should acknowledge, fifthly, saints are different. This goes against the grain of our identification with them, but it also acknowledges what we know to be true about them. It's a simple truth. When we look at the sum of their lives, there is a real distance between them and us. It's a much larger it's much larger than the simple fact that they have passed away from our living presence and are in the fullness of the kingdom while we still struggle. Their difference from us is larger than that. Looking at their lives and their holiness, we see they achieved a type of life different than ours. Saints are not quite like us. This shouldn't shock us or discourage us, after all. We turn to them not just because of their similarities to us, but precisely because they have encountered the gift of grace in deeper and more powerful ways than we have. They've already gone where we wish to go, have already arrived to where only our faith can take us. In the glory of the kingdom, they know what we long to find out. In all these things, they are different than we are. It's no accident we portray them with halos, glowing circles around their heads are merely the artistic convention of what's obvious. They lived on a plane of being different than what we know now, which means that as we invoke them and establish our friendship with them, our striving isn't neutral or indifferent. We want to become as they are. We strive to be different than we are now. Saints lead us to where we want to go, which is why we follow them. They're different. Our prayer is that blessed Stanley Rother be named a saint for the whole church. May we strive to embrace all that he offers us. The more we do embrace him, the more we'll find ourselves living the life offered to us in the gospels. That is, as we embrace him and his example, the more saintly we'll become. Back in just a moment.

Poem And Shrine Invitation

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We have a poem today called The Young Mother. Look at the young mother as she coos and joshes with her child. She's gentle and loving, embraces smallness with patience and smiles. As she should at the helpless creature she's brought into the world, whose being is bounded by the truth of its existence from nothing hurled. When the baby is young and meager and is but pure potential vast, things change though as the infant begins to move and see and grasp. Mother's joy is complete, sure, but her voice sharpens and demands more. Her child plunges into the thicket of living branches behind every door. And she speaks warning and wisdom, exasperated correction again and again, so as to teach virtue and goodness and the evasion of harm and sin, so that there be the hope of life insulated from all harrowing falls, and growing up can follow, growing as the fullest potential calls. Unfortunately, for the one to be raised, the memory slides past mother's delight, to stop on hard words and wise, recover love given only by later sight. Let us strive to live all days in truth as we come to know life some, and grow amidst the first words spoken, as leaves green in the early sun. That's the young mother. We have a whole series of events. If you go to uh to Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine on your uh search engine, you can discover all of the different things that are taking place there, uh, which uh to which everyone is invited. So be attentive to uh all that's taking place there, and know that uh it's our opportunity, your opportunity, to have a chance to enter more deeply into the life and example and the holiness and martyrdom of Blessed Stanley Rother as we approach this, his 45th anniversary. I hope you can continue to be with us as we continue exploring what it means to be Living Catholic.

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Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio. To learn more, visit okcr.org.