A bigger family than you thought

Every Sunday at Mass, Catholics say in the Creed, I believe in the communion of saints. The line is enormous. The Church is not only the people in the pews this morning. It includes everyone who has ever belonged to Christ, alive on earth or alive in heaven, all of them in real communion with one another.

Death does not break the Church. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself (Romans 14:7). The Catechism is direct.

Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness. They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us.

Catechism of the Catholic Church §956

The three states of the Church

The Church exists in three states at once.

1. The Church on earth, called the pilgrim Church, still walking towards heaven.
2. The Church being purified, the souls in purgatory, on the way to full union with God.
3. The Church in heaven, the saints, those already perfected and gazing on the face of God.

All three are one Church. Catholics on earth pray for the souls in purgatory. The saints in heaven pray for Catholics on earth. The Mass is where all three meet.

Why ask the saints to pray

Why bother the saints when you can pray to God directly? The answer is the answer of any family. You do pray directly. You also ask others to pray with you. The saints are the friends who have already crossed over, and they have not lost interest in the people they love.

Scripture is not silent on this. In the Book of Revelation, John sees the elders in heaven holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints (Revelation 5:8). The saints hold the prayers of the Church before the throne of God.

The saints of Shrewsbury

The Diocese of Shrewsbury has a particular family of saints. Some are ancient, some are modern, some are still in the process of being recognised by the Church.

• St Werburgh of Chester (died around 699). Mercian princess and abbess. Bishop Davies has spoken of how her relics, in earlier centuries, awakened in the hearts of our ancestors a longing for conversion and true holiness.
• St Winefride at Holywell. The well, an hour from Shrewsbury, has drawn pilgrims for nearly 1,400 years. Her relics were translated to the Benedictine Abbey in Shrewsbury in 1138. Royal pilgrims from Richard the Lionheart to Henry V walked that road. Holywell is now a national shrine.
• St John Henry Newman, declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIV in 2025. Newman named Shrewsbury directly in his Second Spring sermon, prophesying the diocese would be name as musical to the ear, as stirring to the heart as the glories we have lost; and Saints shall arise.
• St Polycarp, St John Vianney, the Uganda Martyrs. Their relics rest in the new altar at Shrewsbury Cathedral. Every Mass there is offered over their bones.
• St Carlo Acutis, canonised by Pope Leo XIV. The relic of his heart visited the diocese on 21 September 2024. He died at fifteen, having built a website on Eucharistic miracles. Many young Catholics in Shrewsbury have already adopted him.
• St Bernadette of Lourdes. Her relics were welcomed at Shrewsbury Cathedral and St Werburgh's, Chester, in September 2022.

Venerable Elizabeth Prout, a 19th-century religious sister with diocesan ties, is in the formal cause for canonisation. New saints keep arising in this diocese, exactly as Newman prophesied.

The founding saints of the diocese

Bishop Davies points back to the founding generation: Bishop James Brown, 39 at his hurried consecration in 1851, his 26 priests, and the 20,000 faithful they served across a territory that included North Wales. The priests said Mass in taverns, stables and above blacksmith's shops. Within a generation, every parish had a school. They are part of the cloud of witnesses Hebrews speaks of.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Hebrews 12:1

Why the communion of saints matters now

If the saints are real, three things follow.

• You are not alone. Whatever you carry, a saint has carried something like it.
• Death is not the end of relationship. The grandmother who taught you to pray is still in your prayers, and you in hers.
• Holiness is the family business. The saints had no different DNA. The grace they used is the grace offered to you in the sacraments.

Your next step

Pick one saint and walk with them for a month. Carlo Acutis if you are young. Bernadette if you are sick. Vianney if you are a parishioner. Werburgh in Cheshire. Winefride near the Welsh border.

Find their feast day. Ask their prayers each morning. Visit a place tied to them: St Joseph's, Stockport; Holywell; or Shrewsbury Cathedral, where the relics of Polycarp, Vianney, and the Uganda Martyrs rest under the altar. The communion of saints is not an idea. It is a family. Introduce yourself.