ye followers of me, as I am also of Christ"
(_1 Cor._ iv. 16).

[Illustration: Presentation of Mary in the temple.]

CHAPTER I

The Veneration and Invocation of Saints

IN THE Creed of the Council of Trent, which the Catholic Church places
before the faithful as the Rule of Faith, we read: "I firmly believe
that the saints reigning with Christ are to be venerated and invoked."

The Church therefore teaches, first, that it is right and pleasing to
God to venerate the saints and to invoke their intercession; and second,
that it is useful and profitable to eternal salvation for us to do so.

The veneration of the saints is useful and profitable to us. Men
conspicuous in life for knowledge, bravery, or other noble qualities and
unusual merits are honored after death. Why, then, should Catholics not
be permitted to honor the heroes of their faith, who excelled in the
practice of supernatural virtue and are in special grace and favor with
God? That this veneration is profitable to us is evident from the fact
that the example of the saints incites us to imitate them to the best of
our ability.

The veneration of the saints is not only in full accord with the demands
of reason, but we are, moreover, enjoined explicitly by Holy Scripture
to venerate the memory of the holy patriarchs and prophets: "Let us now
praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation" (_Ecclus_.
xliv. 1). "And their names continue for ever, the glory of the holy men
remaining unto their children" (_Ecclus_. xlvi. 15).

Reason and Holy Scripture, then, are in favor of the veneration of the
saints. We find it practised, therefore, also in the early Church. She
was convinced from the very beginning of its propriety and utility. As
early as the first century the memorial day of the martyrs' death was
observed by the Christians. They assembled at the tombs of the sainted
victims of pagan cruelty and celebrated their memory by offering up the
Holy Sacrifice over their relics. We know this not only from the
testimony of the earliest ecclesiastical writers, as Origen, Tertullian,
and St. Cyprian, but also from the history of St. Ignatius the Martyr
(d. 107), and of St. Polycarp of Smyrna (d. 166). Over one hundred
panegyrics of various saints written by St. Augustine are still extant.

And why should it not be right and useful to invoke the _intercession_
of the saints? Everybody deems it proper to ask a pious friend for his
prayers. St. P