On May 15, 2022, Pope Francis is scheduled to canonize ten men and women. According to the Congregation of the Causes of Saints website, these ten individuals will no longer be called blesseds, but they will instead be known as saints. After all, canonical investigations of all ten women and men acknowledged inexplicable healings had occurred through their intercession.

However, one can argue that the Church does not always require miracles to declare someone a saint. Even Pope Saint John Paul II’s apostolic constitution on the causes of saints, Divinus Perfectionis Magister, includes a description of saints which says nothing about performing miracles:

In all times, God chooses from these many who, following more closely the example of Christ, give outstanding testimony to the Kingdom of heaven by shedding their blood or by the heroic practice of the virtues.

Put another way, the Catholic Church does not look first for the supernatural events that we identify as miracles in a reputedly holy person’s life. She looks first for evidence that the person was martyred for Christ or lived a heroically virtuous life. Those are the first and most important miracles and should not be underestimated.

For example, think about one of the Catholic priests you know. Now try to imagine what it would be like for that priest to become such an effective catechist of children and the poor that other men decided to leave everything behind, become priests themselves, and enter his brand-new religious order, devoting their entire lives to teaching believers about their Catholic faith. That’s what Blessed Cesar de Bus (d. 1607) did in his native France.

Blessed Luigi Maria Palazzolo (d. 1886), also a priest, similarly inspired men and women to become religious brothers and sisters in his new religious orders for the service of the poor. Priest and Blessed Giustino Maria Russolillo (d. 1955) founded an order of priests and religious sisters too. Members of his order helped people discern the vocation to which God was calling them, which is why they are often called Vocationists.

The four women who are scheduled to be canonized on May 15 founded orders of religious sisters, which is also not a trivial task. Could you establish a religious order of teaching sisters in France, somehow survive almost certain death during the French Revolution, and then re-establish that order afterwards? Blessed Marie Rivier (d. 1838) did.

Read more at Catholic World Report