One hears stories from soldiers about combat, about how keeping their buddies and themselves alive are their strongest motivations. They don’t want to let their friends down. It’s not going off to war and personally representing the foreign policy of a politician, although nowadays, and in past times, plenty of combatants are inspired by ideologies and agendas.

A Catholic struggles through life as a player in the cosmic drama of light and dark, in a dimension beyond the mundane, quotidian concerns of diet, fashion, and Facebook. Our daily lives contain the spice of eschatology, so that the stakes are great that are in play as the sum of our actions and the influence we wield through the details of our lives.

The consequences being definitively enormous, we seek support wherever we can find it. We memorize inspirational quotes, formulate mantras, wrestle with counterproductive habits and distractions.

We have patron saints. I share the names of Joseph and Matthew, so as a husband and father, I have the example and patronage of Joseph. When Pope Francis cited Joseph’s “concrete, humble, and lowly service,” I took that as an affirmation of the value of doing the seemingly unimportant things that chafe because one wants more important things to do, and wants others to not think one doesn’t have more important things he can do, should do, and does do. As a “late bloomer,” I can look to Matthew as someone else who wasn’t his best self until someone came along and called him to it.

Every day has its many saints, some well-known, others known only as a name on a list. The day you were born has its saints, and those saints are the patron saints of everyone born on that day. St. Francis de Sales is the patron saint of journalists, so he is the patron saint of we, the “ink-stained wretches” of the written word.

Saints become patrons of their homes. Seattle has Mother Cabrini, patroness saint of Seattle. The saints of Ireland are the patrons of the Irish.

After I read the Confessions of St. Augustine, I adopted him as a patron saint, and did the same with St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Bernadette, St. John of the Cross, and St. Francis of Assisi. My wife took the name of Scholastica as her Confirmation name, and my son George Martyn brings St. George and St. Martin (spelling difference disregarded!) into our group of family patrons. St. Louise is among our patrons, because the grade school I attended is named in her honor. As a family of musicians, St. Cecilia is another of our patrons. George has a stuffed lion we named “King Wenceslaus,” so St. Wenceslaus too is among our family patrons.

As life unfolds toward its end, these patron saints are specific reminders of the community of souls who support us with their prayers. I hope they will invite us into Heaven, and if it comes down to it, their invitation will be our ticket to that party!