For Peter Atkinson, founder of The Merry Beggars, telling the stories of the saints became much more personal when his own daughter began listening.
Atkinson explained on The Tim Glemkowski Show that The Merry Beggars created The Saints series to introduce younger children to prayer, the sign of the cross, and the lives of the saints. When he played it for his 4-year-old daughter, Francesca, her reaction brought him to tears.
She was discovering that St. Joan of Arc could be her friend and that the Faith could be filled with “joy and adventure and risk.”
“If you tell stories the right way,” Atkinson said, “kids will love it. Kids will come to love the stories of the saints.”
That means presenting saints not as what Atkinson jokingly called “animatronic prayer cards,” but as real people whose lives were filled with courage, sacrifice, and trust in God.
He pointed to St. Kateri Tekakwitha and her extraordinary journey through the wilderness as an example of the adventure already present in Church history.
Atkinson believes Catholic artists have an opportunity to bring those stories alive for the next generation. As one supporter once told him, “The problem with boring Christian storytelling is it tells the lie that we serve a boring God.”
The saints show us exactly the opposite.
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