One of the major changes made by the Second Vatican Council is reflected in its approach to the cult of saints, a hallmark of Catholic devotional life.

For much of the second Christian millennium and even to this day, Catholics have looked upon the saints primarily as intercessors with God and as heavenly miracle-workers.

Indeed, since the Catholic Church introduced formal regulations into the process of saint-making some four or five centuries ago, it has been a standard requirement that no candidate can be beatified or later canonized without some evidence of a miraculous cure attributable to her or him. In the past, two miracles were required at each stage; it has since been reduced to one.

The fact that there are so many patrons among the saints, and for all sorts of causes, is an indication of the emphasis traditionally placed on them as intercessors, that is, as sources of physical and spiritual benefits.

Thus, there is a patron for drug addiction; another for arthritis; another for cancer patients; still another for desperate causes (everyone in my generation knows of St. Jude); and even a patron for dog bites (St. Vitus, in case you're interested).

The intention of this week's column is not to make light of the devotional practices of millions of Catholics over the course of centuries. But it does need to be pointed out that the cult of saints has another, even more important, purpose than is reflected in their intercessory and miracle-working powers.

The Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church underscored the saints' role as examples of holiness:

"When we look on the lives of those women and men who have faithfully followed Christ, we are inspired anew to seek the city which is to come (Hebrews 13:14; 11:10), while at the same time we are taught about the safest path by which...we will be able to arrive at perfect union with Christ, which is holiness."

The document continued: "In the lives of those companions of ours in the human condition who are more perfectly transformed into the image of Christ, God vividly shows to humanity the divine presence and face. [God] speaks to us in them and offers us a sign of the Kingdom, to which we are powerfully attracted, so great a cloud of witnesses are we given (Hebrews 12:1) and such an affirmation of the truth of the Gospel" (n. 50).

So strongly, in fact, did the council emphasize the role of the saints as examples of holiness rather than as intercessors and miracle-workers, that it felt the need to assure us, in the very next paragraph, that "It is not only by reason of their example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven...."

The council also acknowledged a place for the more traditional role of saints as intercessors with God and as sources of physical and spiritual benefits, but not without a warning to "all concerned to remove or correct any abuses, excesses or defects which may have crept in here or there..."

The "authentic" cult of saints, the council insisted, "does not consist so much in a multiplicity of external acts, but rather in a more intense practice of our love...."

The Church canonized many individuals in the past with this principle at least implicitly in mind. Long before governments accepted responsibility for the poor and the indigent sick, the task of ministering to these groups --- of which they were far too many --- was left to private resources and agencies, the Church foremost among them.

And so the calendar of feast days is filled with saints whose lives were distinguished not by their pious detachment from worldly concerns but by their active, heroic commitment to those in greatest need. By canonizing such individuals, the Church was, in effect, teaching us to go and do likewise.

In the coming days, the Church celebrates the triumph of Christ's grace in individuals who devoted much of their lives to the care of the poor and the sick:

---March 9: Frances of Rome, who founded a community devoted to the poor.

---March 14: the German Queen Matilda (ca. 895-968), who was so generous to the poor that her oldest son, Otto, who succeeded Matilda's husband to the throne, openly criticized his mother's liberality.

---March 15: Louise de Marillac (1591-1660), foundress of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, who trained girls and widows for ministry to the poor and sick, in which she herself was fully engaged.

If example is the key, however, don't we need more married saints --- people like most of you?

Fr. Richard McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.