Christians often realise that through the justification of their faith, they themselves are, as Christians, saints, but without fully understanding, they take it to the extreme and attack the veneration of canonical saints. They claim that venerating saints downplays or denies the sainthood of all believers, and promotes venerated saints to a sort of ‘super-Christian’ status unachievable by most. This is, however, not the case. I view men like St. Augustine not as a downplaying of my own faith, but a success story of how my faith can build me! St. Polycarp does not make me feel inferior, or that I will never achieve a faith to match his own, but rather encourages me that I can have faith like that!
