Raining Not Kats and Dogs

I am having a great day! To begin with, it's raining cats and dogs here, which never happens. I love the rain. Thanks St. Swithin!

That would about do it for me, but we're filling Christmas orders left and right at the shop. How much fun is that? I have always maintained that a patron saint matching can't be beat as a great gift idea.

The questions have piled up like our outgoing mail.

Sister, I have a quick question. I've been looking for the patron saint of stuttering children, and Google tells me that it's Notkat Bulbulus. Problem is, I can't find any other info on him. I'd like to do a novena to him to help my daughter, but feel a little weird talking to someone I've never heard of before and know nothing about. Can you feel in the blanks on his life at all? Thanks in advance...

And you didn't think to use the Google to search any further? Oh well, that's my mission in life, connecting folks with their saints. I had no trouble whatsoever digging up the scoop on Blessed Notkat Bulbulus. I'm not sure you'll feel any closer to Notkat after reading about him, although he seems very sweet to me.

I think the name "Notkat" is a little off-putting. Let's face it, if you were at a Christmas party and someone introduced you to a guy named Notkat, you might feel a little odd asking, "Notkat, would you like some punch?" Later, after a couple of brandied eggnogs, you might forget his unusual name and reel up to him and address him as Notdog, realize your mistake and then burst out laughing.


I might do something like that even if no brandy was involved.

Let me introduce you to Blessed Notkat Bulbulus, the little stutterer.

If you'd like to do any further digging, he's very easy to find if you use his more popular name, Notker. Even harder to remember at the Christmas party.

Although he is the official patron saint of children who stutter, if you just can't get yourself excited about Notkat, you could also go with St. Raymond Nonnatus, patron saint of tiny babies, but also a good candidate for people with speech problems, including those who are talking 'endowed' (blabbermouths). He had his lips pad locked shut because the Muslims were tired of hearing him preach.

And we don't want to leave out St. Thomas Aquinas, who was also speech challenged as a youth and was known as 'the dumb ox'. He turned out alright.

By the way, we now have a wonderful set of new items in the shop for the saints for whom we cannot find a little medal. Pardon the blurry pictures, the images are not actually blurry. We better get to work on a Blessed Notker pendant!