You're a Nurse, You Make a Difference

Where did the week go? Is it Thursday already? Where did the summer go? Is it time to start preparing the classrooms already? In the final lull of the week, and the season, let's have a little patron saint matching.

I am in need of a patron saint. My daughter graduated for Nursing School, near the top of her class, I must add. (Just a little mother pride there)She can not find a job, all the hospitals want "experience". So we need help here please....Who would have thought a nurse could not find a job? But most of her class do not have jobs and this is repeated across the county.

I love this! No problem with saints here! We'll get to that.

I love nurses! Between my father's protracted decline and Sister Mary Fiacre's, I don't know what to call it....old age limbo...I have seen, talked and argued with, begged, cried to and thanked many, many nurses. Their skill, compassion, toughness and ability to work without sleep and still get it right is unmatched.

Here's my 'mother pride': Catholic hospitals are always better because they hire a better nursing staff. That has been my personal experience, having had to enter hospitals at the drop of a hat because we had to run to the nearest one. All nurses are not created equally.

But most of them are the bees knees.

Patron saint for nurses: St. John of God, who took it upon himself to gather up sick people and help them, find a place to put them all and carry them and their mattresses out when the place burned down.

He had a lot of jobs before he found that one, by the way.

We have an extra problem to solve here, though, because we don't just need the patron saint of nurses. We also need a 'finding a job' saint. For that, I always recommend Pope John Paul II. He isn't a canonized saint just yet. But if he is in Heaven, then he is a saint. In any case, here is a person who had the job he had longer than any person who ever held that job. So if there's a better saint for finding a wonderful job that you keep forever, I don't know who it is.

There are a few others, though, that could be helpful: St. Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, is also known as "St. Joseph the Worker". The Holy Family seems to have done alright on St. Joseph's salary.

And both St. Martins! St. Martin de Porres was thought to be not really priest material or doctor material. He was relegated to sweeping the floor. He became a well known healer.

And just in case the job search is lengthy, the other St. Martin (de Caballero), will give you the shirt off his back.