Cinco de What?

What month is it?  My goodness, am I ever behind!  Between getting over my food poisoning, our Easter festivities, basketball playoffs and lovely gardening weather, I have been a blur of black and white. What a wonderful time we've had!  


If you have followed our little convent on the internet for any length of time, you'll know about my basketball fandom.  I'm not sure if I mentioned that it all began because I lived in Chicago for a while, during the heyday of Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen and Phil Jackson.  So of course, I am tickled pink at the success of this year's team.  If you'd like a Mother's Day treat, find Derek Rose's speech, accepting the MVP award (the youngest player ever to receive the honor, just shy of age 23). He waxes poetic about his mother, who is in attendance, and there isn't a dry eye in the house.  


But, back to work.

Sister, who do you suggest as a Patron Saint for a person with kidney troubles?


That would be none other that St. Benedict!  THE St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Monks and the Rule of Benedict. St. Benedict was a teenage living in Rome, watching his peers' lives turn to sinful mush and thought he'd better get out of Dodge to save his own soul.


Off he went to the desert, and the rest is history.  Major, major church history. 


He is the patron saint of kidney disease. I have no idea why.  If anyone knows why, I'd love to hear it. Here is my best guess: the other monks tried to poison him. Twice.

Benedict was all about discipline and rules and the monks didn't much care for what he was asking of them.  They put poison in his drink. The goblet shattered.  They put poison in his bread.  A raven swooped in and snatched it away. Let's hope the raven was part of a miracle and not just hungry or it was curtains for that raven.


The shattered goblet and the raven incident were viewed as miraculous and part of the reason St. Benedict's reputation grew.


I can't help but think that his association with poison might have something to do with the idea of bad kidneys. That's the best I can do.  I'd love to find out more, if there are any Benedict experts out there.


Meanwhile, we have two other questions that have been answered before, but they happily bear repeating:


Hello Dear Sister,

Who is a good saint for when you feel spiritually dead? i.e. - I feel like I'm praying to a brick wall. I go to Mass out of habit/duty. I am near to weeping out of frustration in not knowing how to "fix" this.
Not sure who the saint of the day is, but my answer is their two feet that follow Jesus.


Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta!


What a lovely blog - thank you for enriching our knowledge of our catholic tradition. A request more than a question: apparently there is no patron saint for autistic children. If you are going to the blogger's picnic/conference at the Vatican, please speak to the powers that be to allocate a saint to our wonderful children. And (perhaps of equal importance), a saint for those who take care of autistic children and adults - the educators, the doctors, mums and dads and sibling - there is a LOOOONG list and we all need help at times.


St. Joseph Cupertino!