“Sainting” and “sanctifying”

I saw a 'news' segment on Mary McKillop a few days ago. They were talking about some letters that Mary McKillop had written during her life, and it was apparently newsworthy that the letters revealed how human she was. Well, she was human, after all. The fact that she is to be declared a saint later this year means precisely that she was human, otherwise there would be no need for her to be sainted. I find the whole 'sainting' (canonisation) thing quite strange. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the noun 'saint' derives from the Latin sanctus, meaning 'holy'. Sanctus itself is derived from the verb, sancire, meaning 'to consecrate'. The related English verb, sanctify, derives from the Latin santificare (holy + make), meaning 'to make holy/righteous/pure'. The Dictionary also tells us that the usage of 'saint' as a verb, meaning "to enroll (someone) among the saints", dates only from the late 14^th century.

Those who are called saints in the Bible don't do anything particularly special – no miracles supposedly performed by them after death – but are simply Christians, who have heard, understood and been changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. They become saints not through a process of 'sainting', decided by humans based on what they are supposed to have done after they died, but by a process of sanctification by God while they are still alive. Once they have died it's too late. Furthermore, sanctification is not based on what people do, but based on God's mercy and their faith in His promises to make them righteous.

When Jesus prayed to God before his crucifixion, he said "Sanctify them [the ones whom God had chosen] in the truth; your word is truth... for their sake I consecrate myself, that they may also be sanctified in truth" (John 17: 17, 19). Sanctification gives new life to those who turn from sin to serve God, as Paul says in the first letter to the Corinthians, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?... But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor 6: 9, 11). And the writer to the Hebrews tells them (us) that it is by the will of God that "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10: 10). So Christians are already saints in life, and will continue to be saints for eternity!

Some 'saints' I know.