What Makes a Saint, and How Do You Prove a Miracle?

Many strange things have happened since I fell in love with a dead saint. Lower case ‘s’, because, although Eileen O’Connor’s saintliness is under investigation by the Vatican, it has not yet been officially confirmed. The falling in love bit at the beginning was unexpected, and, if someone had asked that 2018 version of me whether it seemed strange that while sitting in a chapel created in a former bedroom, I would become convinced I was in the presence of a saint who would go on to change the course of the rest of my life, I’m pretty sure she would have agreed it was strange. Maybe even impossible.

But if someone asked the post-Eileen version of me the same question, I would say, ‘No.’ Falling in love with Eileen is the most natural thing in the world. As easy as falling off a log. Which, interestingly enough, is the same answer I’ve been known to give people who know I had a near-death experience long ago and ask me if dying is frightening.

Maybe that’s one definition of a saint: someone who does the strange and impossible so gracefully that it seems natural and takes away our fear of dying?

Since writing Every Inch a Saint, I am often asked two questions: what makes a saint? and how can we prove a miracle? They’re good questions, and I admit I’ve spent quite a lot of time pondering them, but if we asked that pre-Eileen version of me, she would say it was strange indeed that anyone would ask me, a life-long non-Catholic with no theological training, for my opinion of such things.

The Vatican has a whole department filled with experts on miracles and saintliness, but saints and miracles are not content being neatly filed in filing cabinets behind locked doors.

I believe some people radiate so much love, compassion and caring, and act with such obvious kindness, vision and power that they leave innocent bystanders in no doubt there is something very special and unshakably good about them. These attributes are profoundly recognisable to human beings no matter what our culture and creed. The language and labels we use are different, but the qualities are the same.

Eileen O’Connor clearly had those qualities in spades. She was considered a saint in her own lifetime by many who knew her. People would collect soil from where she had sat, and take it home like a relic. Even the undertaker who buried her after her tragically early death was reported to say, “I buried a saint today.” So, I, a random, ordinary non-Catholic woman, am not the first person to come to that conclusion. And I am absolutely certain, now knowing many other people whose lives have been touched by Eileen, that I won’t be the last, either.

And what about miracles? I’m happy to leave the finer points to the experts. Strangely enough, I don’t feel any need to prove or justify the little miracles I have experienced. It’s enough to know they happened. And my biggest miracle of all? I fell in love with a saint, and she made me brave enough to talk about it. Someone heard me, and it helped her. Then something happened and she was able to help someone else. A little spark of hope and kindness flowed through us, and none of us know where it’s going to end up. But it’s changing the world, one kindness at a time. That’s the miracle the world needs. And we’re all invited to be a part of it.