I recently finished a book called Holier Than Thou, by Mark Hart and Greg Iwinski. It's from LifeTeen and geared mostly towards teens, but it's still a decent book giving the amazing stories of some of the canonized saints, quite a few of which I've never even heard of before. But then again, when it comes to the saints, I'm not very well versed at all.
I do have a favorite saint, however: St. Anthony of Padua. If you're Catholic and have ever lost something, chances are someone has told you to pray to St. Anthony. Despite my intense organization, I somehow still manage to lose stuff with alarming regularity. Thank God (quite literally) for St. Anthony. He even gets his own little prayer. It goes something like this: Tony, Tony, please look around, (insert lost item here) is lost and can't be found. Quite simple, yet very effective. I usually add my own little desperate prayer too. And St. Anthony has always come through for me. He even helped me find my car key when I lost it a little while back. And while I consider him my own personal saint (wish I would have picked him for my confirmation name!), he's just one of many, many holy people up in heaven who are watching out for their brothers and sisters still on earth trying to live a life in Christ.
As a Catholic, I greatly appreciate having numerous saints who have gone before me and who are praying for me and looking out for me up in heaven. Of course, everything good comes from God, but saints are our family in the faith who have been there, done that, and can give us guidance and help and encouragement in addition to already being in heaven and closer to God than we are and therefore helping our prayers get answered. If you're not Catholic, you probably don't really "do" the saint thing, and that's a little bit too bad, because there are definitely saints up there, praying for you and for me and asking them for help can be quite effective.
