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When we celebrate the lives of the saints in the liturgy, it reminds us about the importance of following in the footsteps of the saints who have gone before us.
For example, Saint Ignatius of Loyola is famous for his conversion that was the result of reading the lives of the saints. Here is a brief description of it taken from the Office of Readings for his feast day:
Ignatius was passionately fond of reading worldly books of fiction and tales of knight-errantry. When he felt he was getting better, he asked for some of these books to pass the time. But no book of that sort could be found in the house; instead they gave him a life of Christ and a collection of the lives of saints written in Spanish.
By constantly reading these books he began to be attracted to what he found narrated there….
While reading the life of Christ our Lord or the lives of the saints, he would reflect and reason with himself: “What if I should do what Saint Francis or Saint Dominic did?”…
When Ignatius reflected on worldly thoughts, he felt intense pleasure; but when he gave them up out of weariness, he felt dry and depressed. Yet when he thought of living the rigorous sort of life he knew the saints had lived, he not only experienced pleasure when he actually thought about it, but even after he dismissed these thoughts, he still experienced great joy. (From the life of Saint Ignatius from his own words by Luis Gonzalez, emphasis added)
In another example, on the feast of Saint Alphonsus Ligouri the theme of imitating the lives of the saints is again taken up, this time in the opening prayer for Mass:
O God,
who constantly raise up
in your Church new examples of virtue,
grant that we may follow so closely
in the footsteps of the Bishop Saint Alphonsus
in his zeal for souls as to attain the same rewards
that are his in heaven.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen. (emphasis added)
Both examples are a great reminder to us that the saints are there for us as models and are meant to inspire us to lead lives of virtue. Let us read the lives of the saints on a daily basis and follow in their footsteps so closely that we reach the same destination.