Daily Excerpt: Saints I Know (Sula) - St. Junipero Serra
The following excerpt comes from Saints I Know by Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission. Appropriate for Caturday -- the book is "written" by a cat -- and for the Easter season.
About Me and “My” Saints
If you have read any of my three previous books, you already know all about me. If you come to any weekend Mass at Old Mission San Juan Bautista, you have met me. If you have come into the Mission Gift Shop, you may have had a chance to spend some time with me in a quiet place and to meet my friends there who take care of me.
More than a dozen years ago, I came to the Mission as a kitten, perhaps a year old. No one knows how I got here or where I came from though some saw me wandering around City Hall for a while before I followed the church bells to the Mission. Parishioners greeted me with love, the Mission Gift Shop started taking care of me, and I understood that I had received a God-given mission to take spiritual care of the parishioners in return. I love my Mission, and I love my mission. That the parishioners of Old Mission San Juan Bautista accepted me delights me, and my opportunity to interact with the many saints associated with the Mission adds to that delight—which I am now sharing via this book, Saints I Know, for I do know saints—and you, dear reader, may be among some of the future saints I will have known.
With hundreds of people who have become saints over time, I needed a way to choose ones for this small book. So, I chose those who were special to me for some reason. Some have statues in the church or on the grounds or pictures in the chapel. These saints are very special to me because I see them every day, like St. Francis from whom I get my daily orders each morning, as I explained in my book, Surviving Cancer, Healing People: One Cat’s Story. Speaking of St. Francis, the other set of saints important to me and included in this book are the patron saints of cats, pets, and animals. Seriously, would I not think of them immediately?
I also asked our priest, Fr. Alberto, for help. I wanted to know who his favorite saints are since he is our pastoral and spiritual leader at the Mission.
Of course, I also included Saint Joseph and Saint Mary. No one can write a book about saints without including these two. They are very special people, and in some ways, we really don’t know a lot about them, except that they were chosen for something very special and, from what we do know, they were both typical parents and amazing people—what all parents can strive to be.
I wrote this book especially for catechism students as well as for others wanting to know more about the saints and to understand who and what a saint is. I have presented them here not in their holy perfection though they all did achieve that state (one cannot be a saint without that) but in the imperfect form in which most of them existed at least for part of their lives. Like you and me, they needed to grow spiritually and allow the experiences and grace God bestowed upon them to convert them continually to an increasingly closer relationship with Him and bring them to a higher spiritual plane. I wanted you to see what I, just a cat, can see because, well, because I am just a cat. I see that just as our catechism tells us, we are all called to be saints. That is why the last section of this book is about real people. They are not saints yet, but they could be some day, just like the saints in this book started out as everyday people and over time by the grace of God that is available to every one of us, developed the holiness inherent to sainthood.
For more excerpts from Saints I Know, click HERE.
For more posts about Sula and her books, click HERE.
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