My holy heroes
Identity is a moveable feast. It is not a fixed concept. It is an esoteric kind of reality that slips in and out of focus in us as life 
changes around us, in this modern society, as we ourselves change with it. So, its importance to our emotional, spiritual self is painfully clear. Identity grounds us, beckons us, and guides us through the rugged undergrowth of life as well as its mountaintops The point is that we all go through life as much in search of our essential selves as we are in search of God. To become adult, to be happy, to be fulfilled, we need to ask and answer two fundamental questions: who am I? and what am I meant to do here?
I spent a lot of my young life making regular visits to church, trying to identify my place in the pantheon of saints. When the light streamed brightest through the colorful church windows and the great nave was empty, I walked up and down the aisles stretching my neck to study the glass figures, trying to discover what the pictures had to say to me about my own journey on earth. I looked always and forever for women saints, of course. They were painfully few. St. Martin, yes. St. George, of course. Sts. Peter and Paul and twelve apostles were everywhere there for the boys. None of them fit the identity I felt growing within me. The few small windows of women saints that were there, though no one talked about them, were important to me. After all, if even only a few women were there, were given places of honor in those windows—well known or not—it had to be possible for me to be there too.
The truth is that it’s important to know who our heroes are and what it is that binds us to them if we ourselves are to form a strong sense of self.
Social psychologists tell us that the development of distinct identities carries us through life. Without models to steer by, Cote and Levine discovered, we may never become the fullness of ourselves. Instead, we stand to become unsettled and only partially developed adults. As a result, we may refuse to enter adulthood at all and become dependent on others. We can begin to drift through life, settling down nowhere and doing nothing of lasting value for anyone. As perpetual searchers, we go through life perpetually dissatisfied. Or, on the other hand, we may so internalize the past that we are incapable of change in a continually changing world.
The church at one time mandated that the names of saints were to be part of the baptismal rite. Then, forever reminded of the great heroes of the faith who have gone before us, the child had a personal standard to steer by. It would, in other words, become part of their identity.
My list of holy heroes at this stage of life is too long to recount. They are everywhere. Nevertheless, Joan of Arc and Teresa of Avila emerged in me somewhere along the way in my early childhood and hold a privileged place in my heart to this day.
—from 38 Personal Stories to Transform a Life (Benetvision) by Joan Chittister
