It is very hard to go to a movie theater and not find a superhero movie playing. Whether it is from Marvel or DC, superhero movies are the movie to see, and superheroes, in general, are now in the mainstream culture instead of being just for the “nerdy kids”. So where does our faith fit into this fact that superhero movies right now are very popular to see? Well, when we look at what makes a superhero a hero, we often see similar traits to that of the saints, and it is interesting to see that all the qualities that we want in a superhero are the exact qualities that the saints in heaven had during their Earthly life. There are three distinct characteristics that superheroes share with the saints.
1 They make sacrifices: For a superhero, it is usually making a sacrifice of your life to save strangers, doing something out of the ordinary to help their fellow man, but isn’t that what every saint does as well? For example, there are many saints who were of royal descent who sacrificed their easy life and wealth to help their poor subjects. The best example would be St. Francis, who sacrificed all the Earthly comforts of this life to better help the poor all around Italy and Europe.
2 They fight against injustice. This is the biggest reason why a superhero becomes a superhero because they see injustice in the world, and they use their gifts to improve it as best as they can. Again, this is the same with the saints. A great example of this is St. Maximillian Kolbe who saw the injustice of the Nazis and fought against them and when he was captured and was sent to Auschwitz he witnessed an injustice of Nazi SS guards killing random men because some tried to escape, and instead of shying away from the injustice he took the place of a condemned man and died in his place.
3 People look up to them. Many of us as children or even to this day look up to superheroes because these people do good, stand up for what is right, and use their gifts to make the world a better place. This too applies to the saints because we all should follow their example to show the love of Christ to the whole world making it a better place in the process. There is a funny motto that people say, “be who you are unless you can be batman, then be batman.” Instead of batman we can easily substitute it with the name of a saint, because when we imitate the saints, we are imitating Jesus and that is our mission in this life is to imitate Christ and make our way to heaven. |
