My God loves me more than your God does

I believe I've said this before, but perhaps the hardest thing for me about becoming Catholic was the idea of Saints. It's not that I think these people weren't great, I just have never been comfortable with the idea of praying to them. I have never really been able to fully reconcile the idea of praying to somebody who I think will relay the message on to God because their voice is better, but as I believe I've also stated before, praying to saints is more of an act of working as a community than anything else.
What I do find to be also problematic is what Peter says in Acts 10:34, that "God is no respecter of persons." If the Saints were to have more sway over God than we do, then God automatically plays favorites. Here we have to ask ourselves if this is really the case.
The Romans and Greeks believe their gods to be favortists. Aeneas had the favor of his mother Aphrodite. Odysseus angered Hera and Callisto, but had the favor of Athena. Apollo was often invoked before war in both epic and tragedy, and Zeus was often found meddling in the affairs of mortals as well.
But we are not Pagans. We do not believe in gods, or a God who plays favorites. We believe in a God who does not respect people. This does not mean that God doesn't care about His children. What this does mean, however, is that God doesn't give precedence to anybody simply because of piety, status, wealth, achievement or even righteousness.
We believe our God to be a fair God. We believe, as Barth says, that Christ's death saved not only the Jews, but also the Gentiles. We believe that no people are damned simply for being who they are. From the Catholic perspective, we don't even believe that any specific people will be going to Hell (with the notable exception of Dante's Inferno, in which he lists people who are in Hell).
In fact, we as Christians explicitly state that Deus Caritas Est (God is love). What this means from a Christian perspective is that our God embodies love. If there is anything that is love, it is of God. If there is anything that is hateful, it is most certainly not. As St. Paul states, "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing" (1 Corinth. 13:13). It is very much against the nature of Christianity (in its purest form) and the way we view our God to even endulge malicious feelings for other people.
So as part of this, Vatican II recognized that all people who lived righteous lives, regardless of their faith, were likely going to be saved. After all, if God truly doesn't afford privelege based on creed, then why should Christians be saved while all others are damned, especially those living in remote areas of the world where Christianity is not a viable option? To me, this is what it truly means to say that God is love. God loves the Buddhist who worries that he may be walking on his ancestors as much as He loves the Christian who decorates evergreen trees in the winter time as part of some heathenistic tradition Christianity adopted hundreds of years ago. God loves the Muslim who prays to Him five times a day as much as God loves the Hindu who prays to many different gods, and countless avatars. God loves the Jew who will not eat pork out of respect as much as God loves the Mormon who won't drink coffee out of respect, or the atheist who parties all night with no respect.
Our perspective is radically shifted when we start to believe that we worship love. How can we afford to cast judgment on other people? How can we condemn other people's religious choices when God loves us no more than He loves them? How can we praise and glorify war if war is not a love-born response?
Furthermore, this should also put into perspective what lots befall us in our lives. Some believe that living righteously yields blessings while wickedness only renders sorrow. However, joy falls to the good and bad, as do the sorrows. Many people blame God when something bad happens. How can we blame God when we know that when bad things happen to us, it isn't a sign of disrepect for us, but possibly a chance for us to truly be in solidarity with others, or better yet, a chance for some great thing to come about from it? Furthermore, how can we gloat and boast of our fortunes when God could have easily and can still easily take them away?
We are at the mercy of an unbiased God. However, this should be a comfort to us. We believe that God is merciful. If God will reign down His mercy on us, as we believe, then He will also be merciful to the wicked or unjust. We are God's children, and with the parental metaphor comes the parental love that God exhibits for each of us. We may not have VIP seating in heaven, but if we're all at the same place, what is wrong with sitting with a Hindu, or a Taoist, or an agnostic? If we truly believe that Paradise is a utopia, then why would it lack diversity when the world that God created (which was good) is so full of different kinds of people?
So now we must ask, "Why Christianity?" I am reminded of the motto of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, "Ave crux, spes unica" (Hail, the cross, our only hope). As Christians, we have the unique theology of a universal redemption. We believe that our God took on the sins of all mankind in order to save all mankind. Thus, in my opinion, it makes more sense to posit faith in a belief system that theortically, and becoming ever more practically, openly embraces other faiths. If we can learn to look on all the people of the world as brothers and sisters, as Thomas Merton did, then perhaps we can all live in peace and harmony. With Christianity, we are able to look on others in love and acceptance. If we truly understand what love means, this means we pray for those who believe not as we do, not that they convert, but that we will all be together after this life in a happier state of existence.

Sanctes immortales

I love epic. I know that's probably not surprising if you know me very well, but it's true. I loved The Oddysee, The Aeneid and Beowulf. I loved reading The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the Teban Saga. The myths and legends of days of yore fascinate me. The heroes and demigods of lore have captured my attention. I suppose it's the grandeur and honor attributed to them. The human condition is very clearly manifested in the ways that Homer, Vergil and Sophocles shape their characters and story lines.
What seems more incredible to me is how they've lasted throughout the ages. Achilles, the fiercest warrior of the Trojan War, has given his name to a tendon in the body that was made infamous in his death. Ajax, another warrior, was given a constellation and a household cleaning product. Odysseus' name has become synonymous with voyages. Hector is a name still given to our children today. Paris is the most famous city in France and one of the most famous in the world. And we don't even know that all of these people actually lived, or if Homer was just fabricating an elaborate fairytale.
In the Christian World we have similar legends and great figureheads. These, though, are the Saints, and with the exception of Ss George, Joan of Arc and Michael, and others, were not generally warriors. In fact, the most notorious and blessed of our honored were those who gave their lives for their beliefs, not killed others for them.
But the idea of Saints has never been an easy one for me. In the old Greek polytheistic system, it was believed that mortals could become gods, like Hercules and Ganymede. Then once could pray to them, just as he would pray to Zeus, Hera or Athena. But as Christians, I have been uneasy about praying to Saints the same way that I pray to God.
Perhaps this is why, even after I was baptized, I have yet to lift a prayer to any Saint besides Mary, even my own patron. One of my mentors, and I would argue a chief catalyst for my conversion, Father Tom Gaughan, once told me that in praying to a Saint, we are not actually praying to the Saint as if he or she was God, but rather petitioning the Saint to send our prayers to God. This idea still didn't satisfy me. God is said to be no respecter of persons (Rom. 2:11), meaning that all men and women of all races, creeds, ethnicities and sexual orientations are all His children and He loves them all equally. Why, then, would a Saint's prayer be more valuable than the own prayer uttered from my very lips?
Then I realized something. At Mass, we all stand together after we recite the Creed and we lift our petitions to God. All people in the congregation repeat after the specific request "Lord hear our prayer." So, in our prayers, we ask for more people to pray for us, not because we think God will hear certain people's prayers more than others, but we believe in the power of prayer, and the power prayer has to bring people together. So we pray to the Saints in communion with them, to have the favor of all of God's people.
It is true that sometimes Saints become almost idolized, but when we understand first and foremost that, as the Muslims state "لا اللاه ال الله" (No gods but God), then we know that even if we pray to our Saints, we are not asking them to do what God will not, but only praying so that they can lift up their voices with us. Perhaps also, we should use the Saints as examples to us, just as Greek warriors of the Classic period looked to warriors like Achilles and Hector, we can look to the Saints for courage, for wisdom, for example and for a model how to live our own lives. If we need to know how to help the poor, we can look to St Francis. If we need to know how to grow in wisdom and knowledge, we can look to St Thomas Aquinas. If we need to know how to stand up for our faith in the midst of tyranny and intimidation, we can look to Ss Perpetua and Felicity.
In our faith, we have our own Epic heroes and heroines. In our faith we should look to them as great examples of living the truly Christian life.