Matchmaker, Matchmaker....

I always trust the saints to get things straightened out. Of course it started when I was very young and my mother drummed it into my head that she had always prayed to Our Lady of Perpetual Help because she was sure no one would marry her and she hoped for financial stability. That prayer was answered in the form a bread winner she to whom she was married for 60 years.

Of course, St. Anthony never fails to find anything that is lost. Mother Frances Cabrini has indeed kept our machinis running, not just the car, but the washing machine. Someone gave us an old washing machine. I was doing wash the other day and it wouldn't turn on. I was just saying the Mother Frances Cabrini prayer, "Mother Cabrini, put down your linguini, look down from heaven and fix my machini." When Sister St. Aloysius, the genuis, happened by and gave the knob a good twist. I hadn't twisted it far enough.

As that Jesuit teacher of mine said, the miracles are sometimes in the timing. So also goes the answered prayers.

Our reader Anne writes:

Sr Mary Martha, Which saint would you recommend to help me find a good catholic husband? And also, any saints that could help a girl whose moving half way across the world?

And another reader tags along with:
I'm going to add to Anne's request. I need a good Catholic girl for my son. I also need a saint to watch over him as he wants to travel from Nebraska to New Zealand for a semester of study. All that's left for this mom to do is pray and I can use all the help I can get.

Oh, this is so easy breezy lemon squeezy! St. Agnes is the patron saint of man hunting! Although I can never figure out why, really.

St. Agnes was one of many virgin martyr saints with roughly the same story. Girl finds Jesus. Girl vows virginity. Boy wants to marry girl. Girl refuses. Girl is tortured to death. Girl goes straight to heaven.

Not as cheery as a musical, but it does have a happy ending.

In Agnes' case, as with many others, the boy in question was some important boy, and when she turned him down for Jesus, the important boy wanted to humiliate her, so his plan was to march her through the streets in her birthday suit. Her hair miraculously grew and made that plan impossible.

There is another saint, St. Wilgefortis who had a similar set of circumstances, only she miraculously grew a full beard to keep the men at bay. She is not the patron saint of man hunting. She is actually the patron saint of getting rid of men. It could be she was just having the change of life or something, but the miracle is in the timing.

Anyhow, poor Agnes soon felt the wrath of the important boy. She was throw into a brothel where hehad the nerve to pay her a visit and was promptly struck blind. Or killed.

Blind or killed, one of the two.

St. Agnes, being a future saint, returned his sight. Or brought him back to life, whichever thing it was that had happened to him.

Then he had her head chopped off.

Some of these virgin martyrs are tortured for a while, or various methods to do them in fail. The head chopped off always works in the end.

I see no reason for St. Agnes to spend her heavenly days finding husbands for people, but it appears to be her specialty. If you fast all day on the eve of the feast of St. Agnes and then eat an egg before you go to sleep, you will dream of your intended. Unfortunately, you've already missed that important deadline.

You might also consider St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who had an arranged marriage to an important fellow. She was betrothed at age four and married at age fourteen. She was deliriously happy in her marriage and devastated when her husband died on his way to a Crusade. Or was it on his way back? Anyhow, he never made it home. She was only 20 years old. She spent the rest of her life (four more years) and his fortune caring for the poor and sick. That's why so many hospitals are called "St. Elizabeth's Hospital".

And for young people leaving home, the official patron saint is St. Raphael the archangel. Raphael spent a section of the Old Testament traipsing around with young Tobias on his first travels.

And....BONUS...he is also the patron saint of young lovers! He set off with young Tobias. Tobias met the girl of his dreams but the girl's father wouldn't have it. Guess who talked the old man into a happy ending? Raphael. Tobias and his wife live happily ever after. Tobias is one of those old testament figures who lives to be nine hundred and twenty nine years old, or some crazy number of years there abouts.

There are also plenty of saints who traveled very far and could help with the rigors of taking a long trip. I'd go with the North American martyrs. I'm not sure there were people who had a rougher time of it on trips then those poor men. Things were so terrible for them, sometimes they went home to France for a while to recuperate, only to go back again. It's not like they hopped on a plane and had to remember to wiggle their toes on the trans Atlantic flight so they didn't get gas bubbles in their blood streams and all they had to worry about after that was jet lag. They had been chewed on. They had to take a big wooden boat out on the high seas to go back and forth. I'm sure they could look after a modern day traveler with one hand tied behind their backs.

I don't think you ladies can go wrong with saints like these in your and your son's corners!And there is always good old St. Christopher, for those die hard St. Christopher fans.