How many saints have you met?

As far as I know, I have not met any officially-recognised saints, and indeed most of us haven't. However, my retired parish priest, Monsignor M., has certainly met Pope John-Paul II - or, if he hasn't, then he must have photo-shopped a picture of himself with the late pope; which monsignors don't normally do. So I am only two steps away from a saint (or will be, this weekend).

This is what saints look like.

Of course, saints are by definition already dead, so if you want to meet a saint you must catch him or her while still alive. It seems that my advert in the Tablet, "SAVED PERSON WOULD LIKE TO MEET SAINT. OBJECT: DOING GOOD THINGS" was doomed to failure.

Still, you may be able to spot embryonic saints going about their everyday business.

The halo is sometimes a give-away.

For the purposes of this post, we shall have to exclude the latter-day saints, many of whom may be wonderful people but are not quite what we had in mind. Luckily, someone has given me a little book, which will help me with my saint-hunting.

Have you seen any of these people recently?

By the way, did someone overlook Pope Pius XII?

Two old friends who are not yet saints. >