August 23rd, 2026 The Saints in Color: What Our Restored Statues Teach Us
This week, four more figures direct our attention toward a quieter but equally important truth: saints are often formed in the hidden places of ordinary life.
St. Joachim, St. Joseph, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and St. Wendelin lived in different centuries and followed very different vocations. Yet each discovered holiness through responsibilities the world might easily overlook: forming a family, protecting another person, serving the sick, and faithfully completing one’s daily work.
St. Joachim stands near the altar of St. Joseph, holding a staff in one hand and placing the other over his heart. Although the canonical Gospels do not narrate Mary’s childhood, Christian tradition remembers Joachim and Anne as her parents. Their home was the place where Mary was surrounded by faith, learned to listen to God, and was prepared for the vocation she would one day receive. Joachim’s warm red or russet tunic suggests paternal love, charity, and self-gift. His muted green mantle evokes hope, life, and fruitfulness, while the darker sash and wooden staff speak of pilgrimage and perseverance. Gold appears only along the borders, suggesting God’s grace illuminating an otherwise humble human life. His staff pairs beautifully with the book held by St. Anne in the statue across the church. Anne holds the faith that must be taught; Joachim carries the staff of the road that must be walked. Together they remind us that children receive the faith not only through lessons, but through the lives their parents live before them.
At the center of the side altar stands St. Joseph. He wears a pale blue-lavender tunic beneath a warm rose-brown mantle, with a green drape crossing his body. One hand rests over his heart while the other holds a flowering lily. The cool blue-lavender is particularly appropriate for Joseph’s quiet, contemplative character. The Gospels record no spoken words from him. Joseph listens to God, receives his mission, rises, and acts. The warm brown and rose of his mantle connect him with wood, labor, domestic affection, and sacrifice. His workshop, journeys, and family home became places of sanctity because everything was offered in love. The green drape evokes the life entrusted to Joseph’s protection. The flowering lily signifies chastity, understood not only as bodily purity but as love free from possessiveness. Joseph does not control the lives entrusted to him; he protects their dignity and allows God’s plan to unfold.
To Joseph’s left stands St. Aloysius Gonzaga, whose black and white clothing immediately sets him apart. His black cassock and white surplice identify him as the young Jesuit who surrendered wealth, status, and inheritance in order to give his life completely to God. Black reflects the clothing of his religious vocation, but it also suits Aloysius’s renunciation of worldly ambition. The white surplice suggests purity, baptismal life, and service at the altar. Yet his purity was not fragile or withdrawn from the suffering of others. During an epidemic in Rome, Aloysius begged for food, carried the sick from the streets, washed and fed them, and prepared them to receive the sacraments. He contracted the disease while serving others and died at only twenty-three. His black and white garments therefore tell a deeper story: black represents the self surrendered to God; white represents a life made available for service.
On Joseph’s other side stands St. Wendelin, clothed in a vivid green tunic with brown boots, a shepherd’s bag, and a lamb at his feet. Although the historical details of his early life are limited, he has long been honored as a patron of shepherds, farmers, country people, and those who care for animals. Green is the natural color of fields and pastures, but it also suggests life, hope, growth, and the fruitfulness of creation. His boots and satchel belong to the practical world of work, while the gold at his collar, wrists, and hem gives dignity to a vocation that might otherwise appear ordinary. The lamb represents the vulnerable life placed within the shepherd’s care. His hand rests over his heart while his gaze rises toward heaven, showing that work and prayer need not be divided.
The repeated hand placed over the heart in the statues of Joachim, Joseph, Aloysius and Wendelin quietly summarizes their message. Christian holiness begins with an interior assent—a heart that receives God’s will and then carries it into family life, work, service, and care for creation. Aloysius completes the lesson by showing that a heart given to God must eventually become a life given for others. These restored saints remind us that fathers form saints, workers form saints, young people can become saints, and even the most hidden labor can become holy. God’s grace meets us in homes, workshops, sickrooms, fields, classrooms, and every place where love accepts responsibility.
That is the patient work expressed by our parish mission: Following Jesus, Forming Saints