IMO, a "saint" is one who relies on Christ and thus is in His mercy.... justified, forgiven. Thus, all Christians are saints. I think this is biblical.
However, I realize that in TRADITION, the term early on came to be applied to Christians of extra-ordinary faith and life, Christians of great valor and honor. Perhaps a new word should have been invented there, but...... Again, I acknowledge that secondary, later use of the term.
Eventually Catholicism wrapped some of it's extremely complex soteriology around this very, very, very tiny subset of Christians with its "treasury of merits" idea and the RCC pointed it itself exclusively to determine (for the moment anyway) who is and is not a "saint" according to its own evolving definition. I reject that.
But again I accept honoring and focusing on Christians of extraordinary stature, Christians who may serve a good examples and role models. It's good to have "heroes", role models, examples..... and it's good to honor those who lived out their faith with extraordinary love, committment, valor, those in Scripture (Mary, Paul, etc.) and those later (Mother Teresa certainly comes to mind).
- Josiah
