appealed to on account of their eminent sanctity and powerful
intercession.

Therefore the Church by canonization tells us for certain that such and
such persons are truly in Heaven. But might not the Church be deceived
like ourselves?

No! for Christ has promised to be always with His Church, and the Holy
Ghost is ever directing her, so that she cannot err in faith or morals.
If the Church made us pray to persons who are not saints, she would fall
into the worst of errors, and Our Lord would have failed to keep His
promise--a saying that would be blasphemous, for Christ, being God, is
infinitely true and could not deceive or be deceived. To canonize,
therefore, does not mean to make a saint, but to declare to the whole
world that such a one was a saint while upon earth. After death we
cannot merit, so our reward in Heaven will be just what we have secured
up till the moment of our death; hence holiness is acquired in the
Church Militant.

How does the Church canonize a saint? Let us suppose some good man dies,
and all his neighbors talk about his holy fife, how much he did for the
poor, how he prayed, fasted, and mortified himself. All these accounts
of his life are collected and sent to Rome, to the Holy Father or to the
cardinals appointed by him to examine such statements. These accounts
must show that the good man practiced virtue in a more than ordinary
manner, that he either performed some miracles while he lived, or that
God granted miracles after his death through his intercession.

These accounts are not examined immediately after his death, but
sometimes after a lapse of fifty years or more, so that people might not