Bonafide

If you're into food at all, there's a couple buzzwords used when it comes to labeling you may have heard used.

The first is "All Natural." Now, all natural is, as you may (or may not) know, a bullshit term. It means nothing--or more accurately it can mean whatever you want it to mean--but it sounds good. Marketers love it for this reason, and they usually combine it with pictures of a barn and silo, and cow grazing in a field, and bank on people not really knowing the difference or caring.

There is another term you might have seen--"USDA Organic." Now, this is another crunchy term, but unlike 'all natural,' for something to be certified organic, it needs to meet a stringent set of objective criteria to meet standards. Slapping a USDA Organic label on something that hasn't been certified is like pirating music and carries similar legal ramifications. This is part of the reason why organic food is seemingly so expensive. But it's also necessary to prevent counterfit organics capitalizing on the label and higher profit margin.

I also see these food label parallels when it comes to the spiritual life. The Church has always maintained a pragmatic and certifiable approach to canonization. The investigative process is extensive, and two verifiable miracles--which themselves must meet certain criteria--due to the intercession of the holy person being considered are necessary. It is not a willy-nilly process, but lengthy, thorough, and conservative.

Why is such a scripted and seemingly legalistic approach to declaring someone a saint necessary? I suppose for the same reason why 'USDA ORGANIC' certification is necessary--to protect people from 'all natural' counterfit. When I ask St. Jude the Apostle to intercede on my behalf, I can be assured he is in Heaven close to the Father and trust that he is able to work miracles through the power of God. He is Certified Holy, as are hundreds of thousands of others named by the Church.

Can we pray to those who we trust are in heaven though not yet canonized? Of course. If you want to make the parallel, it can be likened to eating organic food from the local farm whose organic practices you know are legit, but who haven't gone through the formal USDA certification process. This is the communion of saints after all--the Church Penitent (those being purified in purgatory on their way to Heaven), the Church Militant (those working out their salvation on earth), and the Church Triumphant (those in Heaven). Prayers for intercession to those holy people who have died are, after all, what often lead to miracles and eventual canonization or beatification.

As we grow more and more accustomed to terms that sounds legit but in reality mean very little and have little basis in objective reality, I appreciate a little certifiable objectivity to reign things in an overwhelming subjective culture, as well as to those who speak to certain objective realities. As G.K. Chesterton famously noted in Orthodoxy:

"Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.

Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. "