Every November 1st, the Catholic Church celebrates All Saints’ Day—a time to honor those who lived exemplary lives of faith. The canonized saints. The martyrs. The unwavering believers who held fast to doctrine even unto death.
But here’s what most All Saints’ Day homilies won’t tell you: many of these saints struggled. They questioned. They doubted. Some even argued with Church authorities, challenged religious dogma, and wrestled with their faith for years before finding peace.
So why do we celebrate saints as if their faith was effortless?
Why do we tell stories of unwavering belief when the truth is far more human, far more relatable, and far more inspiring?
The real heroes of faith aren’t the ones who never questioned—they’re the ones who questioned and kept searching anyway.
The Mythology of Perfect Faith
We’ve created a mythology around faith that’s both beautiful and damaging.
We venerate saints as if they were born with certainty. We tell children about disciples who followed Jesus without hesitation. We praise biblical figures for their “unshakeable” trust in God. And in doing so, we create an impossible standard.
The message becomes: Real faith means never doubting. Real believers never struggle.
But that’s simply not true.
History tells a different story. The saints we celebrate on All Saints’ Day weren’t spiritual robots programmed for perfect obedience. They were complex, flawed, deeply human people who struggled with the same questions we do today:
Is God real?
Why does suffering exist?
How can I believe in something I can’t see or prove?
What if everything I’ve been taught is wrong?
These questions didn’t disqualify them from sainthood. In many cases, these questions made them better Christians, deeper thinkers, and more compassionate leaders.
So why don’t we talk about this?
Saints Who Questioned: The Ones History Remembers
Let’s look at some examples of canonized saints who wrestled with doubt, questioned authority, and challenged the very institutions they served.
Saint Thomas the Apostle: Doubt as a Path to Faith
Everyone knows “Doubting Thomas.” After Jesus’s resurrection, Thomas refused to believe until he could touch the wounds himself. For centuries, he’s been portrayed as the disciple who lacked faith.
But what if we’ve been reading this story wrong?
Thomas didn’t reject Jesus—he just refused to accept secondhand information. He wanted evidence. He wanted truth. And when he got it, his faith became unshakeable. His doubt didn’t weaken his belief—it deepened it.
The Gospel of John records Thomas’s response after seeing Jesus: “My Lord and my God!” That’s not the statement of someone with weak faith. That’s the declaration of someone whose questions led him to profound conviction.
Yet for 2,000 years, we’ve treated doubt as Thomas’s failure rather than his strength.
Saint Teresa of Ávila: Mysticism Born from Struggle
Saint Teresa of Ávila, a 16th-century Spanish mystic and Doctor of the Church, is celebrated for her profound spiritual writings and visions. But what many don’t know is that she spent years in spiritual darkness, feeling abandoned by God and questioning whether her experiences were real or delusional.
She wrote about periods of intense doubt, spiritual dryness, and the fear that everything she believed was an illusion. She questioned Church authorities who dismissed women’s spiritual experiences. She challenged male theologians who tried to silence her.
And through all that questioning, all that doubt, all that struggle—she became one of the most influential spiritual writers in Catholic history.
Her doubt didn’t disqualify her. It qualified her.
Saint Augustine: From Skeptic to Scholar
Before Saint Augustine became one of Christianity’s greatest theologians, he was a skeptic. He questioned everything—philosophy, religion, morality. He explored different belief systems, challenged Christian doctrine, and wrestled with intellectual doubts for years.
His conversion wasn’t a sudden moment of blind faith. It was a gradual process of questioning, reasoning, and eventually finding answers that satisfied both his intellect and his spirit.
His most famous work, Confessions, is essentially a memoir of doubt, struggle, and the messy journey toward belief. It’s honest. It’s raw. And it’s precisely why it still resonates 1,600 years later.
These aren’t outliers. These are some of the Church’s most celebrated figures. And they all questioned.
Michael Battersby: A Modern Questioner
In Joseph’s Letter, protagonist Michael Battersby embodies this tradition of faithful questioning.
After his wife Margaret dies in a mysterious accident, Michael becomes obsessed with finding Joseph’s Letter—a historical document that might prove Jesus’s resurrection actually happened. His quest takes him from Boston to Egypt, pitting him against the Vatican, the U.S. government, and his own family.
But here’s what makes Michael’s story so compelling: he’s not searching because his faith is weak. He’s searching because his faith demands answers.
His grief forces him to confront questions he’s avoided his entire life:
Is there really life after death?
Will I see Margaret again?
Does God exist, or have we created Him to cope with mortality?
If faith requires proof, is it still faith?
These aren’t the questions of someone who’s lost his religion. These are the questions of someone whose faith is so important that he can’t accept easy answers anymore.
And that’s exactly what makes him a spiritual descendant of Thomas, Teresa, and Augustine.
Why We Need to Reclaim Doubt as Part of Faith
The problem with modern Christianity—and religion in general—is that we’ve created a false dichotomy: you either have faith or you have doubt. You either believe or you question. You’re either a saint or a skeptic.
But the truth is more nuanced.
Real faith isn’t the absence of doubt—it’s the commitment to keep seeking despite doubt. It’s not about having all the answers—it’s about having the courage to sit with the questions.
When we only celebrate saints who seem to have perfect, untroubled faith, we do a disservice to everyone struggling with genuine spiritual questions. We make them feel like their doubts are failures. Like they’re not “good enough” Christians. Like questioning means they don’t belong.
But what if we reframed the conversation?
What if we told young people: “Your questions don’t disqualify you. They’re proof you’re taking this seriously.”
What if we told doubters: “The saints you admire struggled too. You’re in good company.”
What if we celebrated All Saints’ Day by honoring not just those who believed, but those who questioned, struggled, and searched—and through all of that, found something worth holding onto?
The Danger of Faith Without Questions
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: faith without questions can become dangerous.
When people are taught never to question religious authority, they become vulnerable to manipulation. When doubt is treated as sin, people suppress genuine concerns about hypocrisy, abuse, and corruption within religious institutions.
History is full of examples:
The Crusades: Unquestioning soldiers slaughtered thousands in the name of God.
The Inquisition: People were tortured and killed for questioning Catholic doctrine.
Modern abuse scandals: Victims stayed silent because they were taught not to question Church leaders.
In Joseph’s Letter, Cardinal O’Grady represents this institutional mindset. He doesn’t want Michael to find Joseph’s Letternot because it would disprove Christianity, but because it would shift power. Proof would give people certainty—but it would also embolden them to question everything else the Church has told them.
And that’s dangerous to any institution built on unquestioning obedience.
The healthiest faith communities aren’t the ones that suppress questions—they’re the ones that encourage them. They’re the ones where doubt is seen as part of the journey, not an obstacle to it.
Because when people are free to question, they’re also free to choose belief authentically rather than accepting it passively.
What All Saints’ Day Should Really Celebrate
If we’re going to honor the saints, let’s honor them honestly.
Let’s celebrate:
The questioners who refused to accept easy answers
The doubters who searched until they found something real
The challengers who pushed back against corrupt institutions
The seekers who valued truth over comfort
The strugglers who kept going even when faith felt impossible
Because those are the people who changed Christianity. Those are the ones whose legacy endures. And those are the ones who give hope to everyone who’s ever felt like their doubts disqualify them.
All Saints’ Day shouldn’t be about perfection. It should be about authenticity.
It shouldn’t celebrate people who never struggled. It should celebrate people who struggled and persevered.
It shouldn’t honor blind obedience. It should honor courageous questioning.
The Paradox of Faith: Certainty vs. Mystery
Here’s the tension at the heart of Michael Battersby’s quest in Joseph’s Letter:
If he finds proof of the resurrection, does faith become unnecessary? If we have evidence, do we still need belief?
It’s the same paradox that’s haunted Christianity for 2,000 years.
Jesus told Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” But he also showed Thomas his wounds. He provided evidence. He understood that some people need more than words—they need something tangible.
And there’s no shame in that.
Faith and evidence aren’t enemies. They’re partners. Evidence can lead us to faith. Faith can inspire us to seek evidence. And the tension between the two—the space where certainty and mystery coexist—is where real spiritual growth happens.
Michael’s search isn’t about destroying faith—it’s about finding what’s real beneath centuries of dogma, tradition, and institutional control.
And maybe that’s what we all need: the courage to dig beneath the surface, to question what we’ve been told, and to find what’s authentically true for us.
Reflection Questions: What’s Your Relationship with Doubt?
As you think about faith, doubt, and what All Saints’ Day means to you, consider these questions:
💭 Have you ever felt like your doubts disqualified you from faith? Who told you that—and were they right?
💭 Who in your life has inspired your faith journey—not by having all the answers, but by asking the right questions?
💭 If you could ask one question and receive an honest answer about God, faith, or the afterlife, what would it be?
💭 Do you think doubt strengthens faith or weakens it? Can the two coexist?
💭 What belief have you questioned recently—and what did that process teach you?
The Saints We Need Today
The world doesn’t need more perfect believers. We have enough people claiming certainty they don’t actually possess.
What we need are authentic seekers. People willing to admit they don’t have all the answers. People who question, struggle, doubt, and search—and through all of that, find something worth believing in.
We need saints who look less like marble statues and more like real human beings.
We need spiritual role models who show us it’s okay to wrestle with faith, to argue with God, to demand better from religious institutions, and to keep seeking even when the path is unclear.
Because that’s what the real saints did.
That’s what Thomas did when he demanded to see the wounds.
That’s what Teresa did when she challenged theological authorities.
That’s what Augustine did when he spent years questioning before believing.
And that’s what Michael Battersby does in Joseph’s Letter when he risks everything to find the truth.
All Saints’ Day: A Call to Courageous Faith
This All Saints’ Day, let’s expand our definition of sainthood.
Let’s honor not just the martyrs who died for their faith, but the doubters who lived with their questions.
Let’s celebrate not just the obedient, but the challengers who pushed institutions to be better.
Let’s remember not just those who claimed certainty, but those who admitted uncertainty and kept searching anyway.
Because that kind of faith—the kind that embraces questions, welcomes doubt, and pursues truth relentlessly—is the faith that changes the world.
It’s the faith that challenges corruption.
It’s the faith that demands justice.
It’s the faith that sees through hypocrisy.
It’s the faith that refuses to accept easy answers when complex truth is available.
And it’s the faith that will guide us through whatever uncertain times lie ahead.
Explore Faith and Doubt in Joseph’s Letter
If you found this reflection meaningful, you’ll discover even deeper explorations of faith, doubt, and the courage to question in Joseph’s Letter.
Follow Michael Battersby as he searches for historical proof of the resurrection—not because he wants to destroy faith, but because grief demands answers and authentic belief requires truth.
It’s a thriller that makes you think. A mystery that honors both faith and doubt. And a story that asks: What if the most faithful thing you can do is refuse to stop questioning?
Download the first chapter free and step into a narrative that celebrates the questioners, not just the believers.
Join the Conversation About Faith and Doubt
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Because All Saints’ Day isn’t the end of the conversation—it’s the beginning.
About the Author:
Robert Parsons is the author of Joseph’s Letter, a novel that explores the intersection of faith, doubt, and the search for truth. After decades of teaching religion to adolescents, Robert understands the questions that keep believers up at night—and he’s not afraid to explore them honestly. His mission is simple: encourage people to think outside the box about religion, belief, and what it means to have authentic faith.
Robert Parsons 