The saints choose us. They wait for a particular moment in one’s life to do so. Making friends with the saints is similar to making friends with the people one meets in one’s daily life. Friends are put into one’s life at a particular time and moment. Sometimes those friends remain close forever, and sometimes one moves on from them - not because of some wrongdoing on anyone’s part, but simply because the season for which they were there has passed. The saints make their presence known at the right time. At ten years old, a little boy might not be ready for a strong devotion to St. Therese, but he is all afire with love for St. John Bosco. Ten years later, one can imagine the impact that St. Therese might have had on the same little boy, now a young man, discerning a vocation to be a missionary. A teenage girl with a burning desire to be a nun might love St. Therese with a passion, but little does she realize that St. Therese came into her life to introduce her to her mother, St. Zelie Martin, with whom the same young woman will develop a deep friendship once God has shown her that her true vocation is marriage.
God provides His children with friends in the saints. That is why the saints are patrons of specific places, events, and states of life. That is why particular stories of the saints make an impact on one’s mind and heart. To everything there is a season…and for every season there is a saint.
