Ask Sister Mary Martha

Going Gentle Into That Good Night

2012-01-25T12:17:00.000-08:00

I must apologize to this reader for the delay in responding to this question. I thought we should get a start on the week before we tackle the tough stuff.

Dear Sister,
I need to pray for my mother. She suffers from Alzheimer's to the extent that she is completely unresponsive to any stimuli.

She always told us that she would never want to be a 'vegetable', and put a no heroic measures in her will- but she has been kept alive for 2 years in this state and the Dr s say that she may well live on for another 5 or more...

Can I pray for her release? I fear that she is trapped, alone, in a totally unresponsive husk of a body. Is there a Saint who would help?

And thank you for your wonderful blog.

Of course you can pray for her release, and yours. But take heart.

Perhaps, because of her suffering here and now, she will zoom straight to Heaven, bypassing Purgatory altogether. I often thought about that when my own father declined with the glacial slowness that chipped away at his fatherhood, his manhood and his humanity. Surely, this counts for something!

Your job, in the meantime, is to make sure that her human dignity and the honor due her as your mother is maintained to the utmost. I'm sure that is exactly what you are doing, in every way, with all of your heart.

And also take heart that although she is indeed trapped in that husk of a body, she may also be visiting happy and loving moments from her life, or communing with angels. And if she isn't, she soon will be, because although it all seems like endless suffering eternity now, in the great scheme of things, even 5 years is a very short time.

In regards to a patron saint....there are quite a few saints who were paralyzed, desperately ill, unable to speak, "trapped" as you put it. They did not pray for release, but accepted their suffering with joy. That's why they are saints.

But it's perfectly okay for you to pray for your mother to have a gentle passing as soon as possible. That would be good old St. Joseph, the patron saint of a happy death. We believe that Mary and Jesus were with St. Joseph when he died. What could be happier than that?

Modern Maladies

2012-01-24T13:34:00.000-08:00

It looks like this is shaping up to be a patron saint matching week. It's one of my favorite hobbies! So, let's have at it.

Thank you, Sister for the time you take to entertain and educate us. I hope you can help with a Saint matching for me. I have a friend who has been recently diagnosed with conversion disorder. The case is very severe and she is completely disabled and unable to care for herself. She requires in home nursing care and her family is suffering terribly, along with her. I do what I can to help from time to time, but I know that prayer is the only thing I can do to help her all the time.

I have to say, it has been quite an interesting situation for me to have so many people educate me about so many things I know nothing about. Finding patron saints for modern maladies has been an exhilarating challenge.

I really thought "Conversion disorder?" It called to mind a recent "Dear Abby" letter of a woman who was insulted by her born again friend's constant needling about where the woman would end up after the Last Judgment. I'm sure any readers who saw this question in the comments section went running to the Google. I certainly did.

Conversion Disorder is a psychological state that causes a physical reaction. The person simply shuts down. No one knows exactly how it works or what exactly causes it, because the person afflicted can't tell you about the the mental torture that's caused them to live it what surely must be a very private Hell. I was thinking it must be a lot like catatonia, but the word catatonic was not used to describe the symptoms.

But a patron saint sprang to mind as I read about the disorder: St. Rosalia, the patron saint for people who just need to get away from it all.

Little Rosalia was a descendant of Charlemagne! But in an effort to live a holy life, she took herself off to be a hermit and lived in a cave. After a few years in that cave, she moved to a new cave and then one day, the cave caved in on her.

She had been long forgotten by then, so no one even noticed she was gone.

So Rosalia took herself away from life, too. And unlike her, your friend has people who care about that and want to protect and help her. No one has forgotten her.

In the end, no one forgot Rosalia either. When a plague hit Palermo, Italy, Rosalia appeared to a man and told him where to find her bones. He unearthed her, brought her home, and many people were cured. There is still a big party in her honor every year in Palermo.

I have a little side note for her family: St. Gemma! She was bedridden for so long at home with her family caring for her. The whole Galgani family are surely saints in Heaven.

Buttons and Bows

2012-01-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

It's a rainy Monday here, so let's cheer up and start the week on a happy note, shall we?

Dear Sister Mary Martha,

Do you have a suggestion for a saint to help with depression and anxiety - mostly anxiety?

Sincerely,

Jenna

Let's take a look at the issue of depression and anxiety from a slightly different angle today, shall we?

Before we begin, let's admit that depression and anxiety can be due to chemicals in your brain and that you may want to seek medical attention, that it may indeed be very important for you to do so.

That said, I normally shove people in the direction of Mother Teresa of Calcutta because she famously suffered from what is known as a 'dark night of the soul', which is a fancy, theological way of saying she felt abandoned by God and was very depressed about it. Being the busy gal that she was, she must have had a good deal of anxiety about that. Her book outlines her depression and anxiety.

But today, let's also admit that many of us feel depression and anxiety because the world around us makes it seem as though everybody else is doing pretty well, living happy lives surrounded by loved ones. They are all out there posting pictures of their dogs, snuggled in the bedclothes, and the kids, smiling from ear to ear in the snow. They send emails quoting hopeful messages of love and inspiration. Their houses are cleaner than ours. They don't have a lot of junk on the floor of their cars and they don't forget appointments or birthdays.

THEM

YOU

Or, just when you do feel rather happy and relaxed, you realize that there are people suffering and dying and starving, there are wars, shootings, murders, chopped up people, dogs being kicked and yet another political debate scheduled for this evening.

So let's find a patron saint for that type of depression and anxiety, too. Lo! and Behold! Her feast day is today! She hasn't been canonized yet, but only because they haven't set a date for the party!

This little German girl grew up in Utica, New York, worked in a factory and became a nun. She was a born leader and quickly became a Mother Superior, over and over again.

She ran a hospital.

Meanwhile, over in Hawaii, a leprosy epidemic caused the government to dump all the poor sick people together on one island. Just dumped there. Good luck to you, lepers! At least the weather's nice! There were so many of them, they couldn't check them onto the island fast enough. A call went out to the nuns in the Mainland. Anyone care to come and help out?

Sister Marianne Cope took 6 nuns, all with their hands eagerly in the air to go along, and spent the next 30 years caring for the lepers.

And what does all of this have to do with depression and anxiety? Sister Marianne couldn't stand the depressing atmosphere. Why should these poor sick people, doomed by their disease and corralled onto an island, have to live out their days slumping around in despair? Why shouldn't they find some joy in life?

She established a school for girls and made sure they had pretty dresses! She drummed up parties and generated entertainment. She found joy where there had only been sorrow. And she put a brightly colored bow on it.

She probably invented clipping plastic flowers to flip flops. I made that up. But she would have done that if she had some flip flops and some plastic flowers.

In any case, she was beatified back in 2005. But just last month her second miracle was confirmed! She's in! Be sure and wear a pretty dress on the day she is canonized.

The Patron Saint of ADD

2012-01-17T13:48:00.000-08:00

Hi Sister! I need your help with helping to choose a confirmation saint for my husband. Well, he needs your help. He's an artist, but also really into comic books. He's got really bad ADD, and has a hard time finishing things. He also is a revert and came to the Church a bit later in life though he was baptized Catholic. I thought Augustine would be great, but he's read about him and doesn't feel like they have a lot "in common." Any thoughts? A couple he could read up on would be great!

Yes! I would recommend St. John of God. He is one of my favorite saints, bouncing rootlessly from one thing to the next until he had a complete nervous breakdown. Then he became a hero. How's that for really bad ADD? He also came to the church later in life.

And! He sold holy cards. I know it isn't comic books, but they didn't have comic books back then. People don't seem as fascinated with holy cards these days, but when I was a child there was always a stock pile of them at the back of church and a pack of different ones from which to choose at every funeral. I still have a large collection left from everyone in our family who has gone to where the woodbine twineth.

The boys always liked the ones that were rather gruesome, like St. Lawrence being roasted, or St. Sebastian shot full of arrows. St. Bartholomew having his skin peeled off was a big hit.

Personally, I liked variety and gravitated toward action pictures, rather than a picture of some old saint with his head bowed, staff in hand, book in the other. I liked St. Mary Magdelene, draped over a big rock, praying for forgiveness. St. Rita with a heavenly light drilling a permanent hole in her forehead. Or if they were just going to stand there, at least be standing with something interesting. St. Lucy with her eyes on the plate. St. Catherine of Alexandria with her giant spiked wheel.

I'm sure I came by this interest because of the statues lining the aisle of my parish. There were pillars all the way up both sides of the church and each pillar had an almost life size statue of a saint. I'm sure some of them were life size, because people used to be much smaller. I used to stare at them until their eyes blinked. Ever do that? If you stare long enough their eyes will blink.

But I digress. If your husband likes comic books, he also likes heroes. St. John of God became a hero. He ran a makeshift hospital, begging to get the beds, blankets and equipment he needed. When it caught on fire, he carried out the patients and then went back in for the precious mattresses. As a result, he is also the patron saint of firefighters.

Quite a character, John of God. A great saint.

It's a Jungle Out There

2012-01-16T14:50:00.000-08:00

Hello Sr..You have mentioned bible study on ur own is a recipe for potential danger..could you explain.

Ur? This is not a text! For the next twenty minutes, please write the word "your" on the blackboard.

It's not just me. Because the Catholic Church realizes that a lot of the language and imagery in the Bible is loaded with symbolism and layers of meaning, the Church in Her wisdom would rather you didn't dig around in there on your own.

On top of which, which Bible are your reading? Which translation?

Digging around in the Bible on your own is rather what caused the giant mess of denominations that now crowd the planet. Martin Luther was mad at the Church, thought the authority was corrupt and advised everyone to skip the 'middle man' and just interpret the Bible for yourself. As soon as that happened, everyone had their hands up, yelling, "I think it means this! I think it means that!" And the next thing you know you have Calvinism and Puritans, Methodists and Seventh Day Adventists.

Hence my admonishment "a recipe" for disaster. You can follow the recipe by reading any history of the origins of the various Christian denominations. One group of people sitting in pews doesn't agree with one little thing that some of the other people sitting in those same pews think that one little passage in the Bible means and the next thing you know they've built their own pews and before you know it, you have Jim Jones preaching in a remote jungle to get away from everyone else's interpretation.

Yes, we'd like you to actually read the Bible, by yourself even. But before you find yourself in a jungle drinking Kool-Aid, please then go back and read about how the Church interprets what you've read. And if you're going to sit around in a group and discuss it all, make sure to do some research about tonight's passages before you have a bunch of hands in the air, yelling, "I think it means...."

A Soft Place to Land

2012-01-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

Sister, Would you please guide me to a patron saint. These are my issues: I work full time as a school guidance counselor, I am married and have three children. My son is a nice young adult who has graduated from college and lives successfully on his own. My daughters are a mess. Both still live at home. The oldest thinks partying is her main purpose in life and she has a daughter out of wedlock. The youngest suffers from mental illness and struggles from day to day. Needless to say I feel stressed and am often vacillating between being angry, frustrated, and worried sick. I would really appreciate your guidance. Thank you your blog really is a bright spot for me.

You need to head straight to St. Monica . Her child was a mess, too. He ended up being a Doctor of the Church. Her husband was no picnic, either, but her prayers straightened him out as well.

When we ask a saint to pray for us, just the same as when we ask our friends to pray for us, we pick a saint who we feel understands our travails. But I think St. Monica is a good choice for another reason.

Keeping in mind that St. Monica has no power to help out except through intercessory prayer, like anyone else who might pray for you, clearly, prayer is something at which Monica really, really excelled.

Keep in mind one other thing: Monica led by example.

One of our wonderful readers who left a comment suggested Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I couldn't agree more. For me, she is the soft place to land when life pushes your to your wits end. You know that saying that God doesn't give you anything you can't handle? I don't believe that. Whoever said that just made up something that sounded good. Life kills people all the time. PTSD, anyone?

But God has provided us with grace and sanctuary, and one of the many ways he has done that is through Mary. God provided us with a mother, Mary the Mother of God.

Go home to mother! Here is the prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Help:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known, that anyone who fled to thy protection,
implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, oh virgin of virgins, my Mother.
To thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful.

Oh Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petition, but in they mercy, hear and answer me. Amen.

If we back away from the fancy language what does the prayer say?
Mary, everyone knows that you have never turned a deaf ear to anyone who has asked for your intercession. This makes me feel safe in asking for your help, even though I don't feel much like I deserve any help from anyone, let alone, you. Thank you for your compassion for me.

And hey, everybody! Can we please note the word INTERCESSION, right in the prayer, there? Thanks.

I think teaming up with Mary will help your stress level enormously, knowing you have two very powerful pray-ers, on your team.

One word of advice. Stop being a doormat for that girl. If she's out too late, lock the door. Make yourself available to babysit, only if the child's mother is at work or at school and at no other time. She'll need to find a job to pay a sitter. Set some boundaries, as they say. She can treat you with respect and pitch into the household (far be it from me to dismiss the idea of communal living!) or she can leave.

I have compassion for her, as she may be behaving badly due to the stress you are all under. But she's going to have to try out some new coping mechanisms.

Also, drop the anger. It's okay to feel anger. It's not okay to harbor anger. Recognize it for what it is: pain that is not resolved.

Okay, that was more than one word. Now, you'll have Monica to help you out!

Good King Wenceslas Looks In

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

We have some lingering holiday questions to address that went wanting while we drank eggnog. Although I'm sure most have you have now chucked your crispy old Christmas trees to the curb, we still have work to do. About that Good King Wenceslas number:

I was told that this song was a protestant version of the actual miracle. Supposedly, the truth was that the Duke (he wasn't actually a king)was going to Adoration on a very cold night and the page was his torch bearer. The page was freezing, he walked in the saint's steps, he miraculously warmed up.

The author of the song was a protestant minister and wanted to high light acts of charity rather than, say, Eucharistic Adoration, so he changed the story around.

That's what I was told, and I'd love to know if it's the truth! I care very much because St. Wenceslaus is my name saint. Have you heard this before?

I have not heard that before and it doesn't really ring true to me. While I could see how some separated brethren writing a Christmas carol would change a story from a King going out for Eucharist Adoration to something else, the separated brethren are not high on emphasizing charitable acts as a path to Heaven, either.

The man who penned the Wenceslas ditty, John Mason Neale, did change around a song to tell his story. He actually took an old spring song and dumped those lyrics, replacing them with the good king. Here's the timeline on the whole shebang: Duke Wenceslas the actual person, early 10th century, Old Spring song ("Now is the time for flowering"), early 16th century, Good King Wenceslas, the Christmas Carol, 1853.

Was Duke Wenceslas headed out for Eucharist Adoration when the poor man came in sight? There is nothing to suggest that that is the true story. Writing about Wenceslas in 1119, a chronicler stated:

But his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you; for, as is read in his Passion, no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God’s churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched.

This activity, whether true or not, prompted a Pope to get out and walk around in the snow in his bare feet as well. The Pope and his feet survived the ordeal.

Also, Rev. Neale wrote the song for Boxing Day, another indication that the song didn't change the story. It's a good Boxing Day story, isn't it?

And yes, Wenceslas was not a king, but a duke. But he was given the honorarium "King" because of his devotion in spite of his high status.

It is a Protestant song, I'll give you that. Neale was a big deal in the Anglican church, a big enough deal that his attitudes were suppressed by his bishop for 14 years.

The truly interesting thing in all of this is the story of Neale. He founded the Society of St. Margaret, which was a group of women dedicated to nursing the sick. What does that sound like to you? He founded an order of Sisters. So right away that was suspect by the separated brethren, separated at this point in time by only 300 years. They had just lost John Newman to the Catholics and they did not like anything that smacked on Catholicism. St. Margaret, indeed. The powers that be thought that perhaps Rev. Neale was a Vatican plant, sent to subvert their church (that was based on subversion from the Catholic Church).

What goes around comes around, eh?

We don't believe that. We believe that the Truth has a way of setting itself free.

Rev. Neale was mauled at the funeral of one of his Sisters and he was threatened on other occasions with stoning and people who wanted to burn down his house. In the end, he and his Sisters survived and thrived, living on to do good deeds.

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas!

2012-01-06T12:57:00.000-08:00

No, you won't have to watch you little sister tear apart the snow man family in the middle of the night because she doesn't want to move. It's Little Christmas! The Feast of the Epiphany!

I've talked about the "Wise Men" before. But what is the significance of these fellows of unknown origin and numbers? (I, for one, am happy that we've settled on the manageable number of three, because they are the heaviest statues to lug up out of the church basement. Two on still on their camels and on is off his camel, so we have to lug up his camel, too.) They are here to continue the narrative of Jesus, that He is here for everyone, the poor and the mighty both.

I also particularly enjoy this feast day because we get to visit with St. Joseph again. We don't hear much about him in the New Testament, although we now keep him busy with patronages from workers to real estate, from a happy death, to the entire country of Italy.

You know, Italy has more exorcisms than any other country? What's that about?

I digress.

This is the point where St. Joseph is at his best, getting the information that his family is in grave danger and taking swift and decisive, and very loving, action. He made his way with them to Egypt on foot with no GPS or Triple A. It seems that everything went fine for them from then on, except for one small glitch when the Mary and Joseph lost track of Jesus for a bit, which turned out to be no big deal in the lost child department.

St. Joseph gives us such a sense of peace, doesn't he? He did everything that was asked of him and he made it look easy. My dad was kind of like that.

I was tickled to find out that today is the feast day of the newly minted St. Andre, formerly known as Blessed Brother Andre of Montreal. What a good match to put his feast day on this day! He was devoted to St. Joseph.

St. Andre is famous for having built the Oratory of St. Joseph with his simple devotion and persistence. “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures,” he once said. But in his lifetime, the reason he was able to accomplish so much is because he had become a rather famous healer, rubbing the sick with oil from the lamps in the chapel at the rectory. St. Joseph's oil is on sale at the Oratory gift shop. I have some! Because so many people knew him, people also came to know his cause.

Of course people thought the oil was miraculous, but St. Andre was careful to remind them that it was not the oil the healed, but St. Joseph.

And now, we have to be careful to remind people that when he said that, we, as Catholics, know that is short hand for 'it is not the oil that healed, but the intercessory prayer of St. Joseph'. The separated brethren are confused enough. I know it's cumbersome to go around saying, "Pray for the intercessory prayer of St. Anthony" but I think we should consider it. At least boil it down to "Ask St. Anthony to pray for you" instead of "Pray to St. Anthony."

Enjoy the day!

Lean Your Ear This Way

2012-01-03T13:14:00.000-08:00

St. Gemma was so pretty.

SMM, I have been a volunteer child advocate through the national CASA (court appointed special advocate) program on and off for ten years. Is there a saint for advocates of children?

Of course! Jolly old St. Nicholas! Santa Claus is the patron saint for children. The story has a "Sweeney Todd" flair to it. It seems during a time of famine and evil innkeeper murdered three children, chopped them to pieces and put the pieces in the pickle barrel to cure.

He was planning on passing them off as ham. Perhaps they were chubby children.

But St. Nicholas came along and solved the crime. We don't know how he did that. Perhaps he fancied a pickle and lifted the lid to help himself. This is why, by the way, we have the "Christmas Pickle", a German tradition of hiding a pickle ornament somewhere on the Christmas tree. The child who finds it gets a prize. We have two Christmas pickles on our tree. I can never find them when it's time to take the tree down. No prize for me! And I'm the one who puts them on there in the first place.

I digress.

St. Nicholas rescued the children and miraculously brought them back to life.

Now, while I'm dubious that any of this took place, I can imagine that you sometimes feel as though you are rescuing chopped up children hidden in pickle barrels. But that's not really happening to you, either.

It does seem to me that St. Nicholas had a sweet heart, or these legends would not have arisen around him. We don't have legends of sweet things done by nasty people or even crabby people. Legends arise from the heart, because of bravery, compassion, strength.

Here's to your bravery, compassion and strength. I hope Santa was good to you this year.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

2012-01-02T14:42:00.000-08:00

Hi Sister, do you have any advice, Catholic advice, for how to get through the holidays when you feel sad, depressed, lonely. I have no energy. I wish there were no holidays. All the advice I read is about how to accomplish your shopping or entertaining. I want to know how to deal with God's birthday when you feel too sad to wish Him a happy birthday. Do you know what I mean?

Happy New Year! Here I am with an answer to your question, a day late and a dollar short. I'm sorry I'm so late to answer your question. Perhaps I am just impossibly early, for next Christmas.

Although, you did say you wish there were no holidays, and there are plenty between now and what we have come to call the "holiday season" because there are three in a row.

Here's the problem, I can't really answer your question. It would be rude for me to tell you to lighten up, smack a smile on your face and get over yourself if you are suffering from clinical depression. If that's the issue, you can't do these things. I understand that.

I might be able to help a little with some perspective. We live in a time of abundance in everything. Even if we are poor and struggling and eating beans and rice for dinner every night, we are better off than the pioneers coming across the plains in Conestoga wagons eating lard and sugar and losing the little ones under the wagon wheels. Or the indigenous peoples who were slaughtered to make way for those wagons.

We can eat our beans and rice in front of the tube, travel without too much work involved by sitting on some sort of gas powered chair or couch on wheels. We have an abundance of all kinds of choices of food, types of clothing, freedom of choice in how we behave.

We should already be clicking up our heels in joy and then...(dramatic musical sting) THE HOLIDAYS. Somehow, we are supposed to ramp up our heel clicking and add even more of everything to everything for about a month. That's exhausting, and sometimes utterly overwhelming. No wonder we feel sad and let down.

On top of that, we also have a lot of social media where we get to see what everyone had for breakfast and how lovely their lives are and how pretty their children look and how cute the dog is in his Santa hat. No one wants to post depressing things because no one wants to read them or think about them. So we have a very VAST false front. A permeating facade of perpetual happiness and success.

That could make anyone feel sad, depressed and lonely.

The simple answer, if there is one, is to let it go. Focus your attention on love and gratitude and compassion. Try to ramp those things up. And yes, smile. Even if you don't feel like it. I will remind you that it takes less muscles to do that.

I emphasize the word "try". Because maybe you can and maybe you can't. But you certainly can't if you don't try a little. One thing. The smile.

Or the thank you.

Or the "Happy Birthday, Jesus". After all, why do we wish people a happy birthday in the first place. Why do we feel bad when we don't get a happy birthday wish? Isn't it because saying "happy birthday" is a way of saying "I'm glad you were born"?

If you are not clinically depressed, you really need to examine why you are sad, depressed and lonely. If your problem is not a chemical imbalance, then yes, I do have some advice for you.

But if you are, here is some advice from someone who bears the same burden.

Servant of God, The Soldier's Wife

2011-12-29T10:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Sister Mary Martha,

I appreciate your blog so very much! I love how you always seem to find just the right patron saint for any cause. And so I'm writing to you with my own question: who would you recommend as the patron saint for military spouses? With all the loneliness, the worrying, and the hardships that we are facing, we could use our own saint for intercessions. My friend Maia was thinking of St. Margaret of Scotland (her reasons are stated here, but can you think of a saint whose husband was NOT killed in battle and came home safe and sound instead?
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer this!

I have come up with a couple of saints, but I'm not sure you're going to like them. You seem to want a happy ending saint and the truth is, not a lot of saints have a happy ending. That's why they're saints.

The saint that sprang to mind for me was St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Ever notice how many hospitals are named after her? There's a reason for that. She was the daughter of the King of Hungary and was married off to a prince at age 14.

FOURTEEN!

She was deliriously happy with her prince, however and he with her. They had three children and a great life, although no one else was happy with Elizabeth. It seems she didn't care much for being well off and pampered. She constantly gave away everything to the poor and tried to live a simple life. It even got on her husband's nerves a bit. The family was really irritated with her at all times. She was so well known for her generosity, that poor people flocked to the gates of the palace. The family was not amused.

And then, after only six years of bliss, her husband went off to the Crusades and well....not a happy ending here. He never came back. Elizabeth spent the rest of her life grief stricken over his loss. But she put all that sad energy to good use, giving away everything she had and taking care of the sick to the point where she had inadvertently opened a hospital. She died at age 24. She is the patron saint of happy marriages.

But....you wanted a happy ending for the soldier's long suffering wife. So let's go with a patron saint of hand wringing and fretting that pays off. St. Monica. Her husband and son gave her fits, but all her worry and prayer helped her son become one of the greatest saints to walk the earth. They weren't soldiers, though.

How about St. Helena? Her son Constantine was a great general, a constant soldier. He turned the whole known world to Christianity. St. Helena found the true relics of the cross and if you think she wasn't constantly worried about her son, take note that she took one of the nails that had bound Jesus to the Cross and sewed it into the bridle of Constantine's horse.

She doesn't seem like the best fit for you, though, because although she suffered on her own when she was younger (her husband dumped her for a younger model), she ended up being the Empress of the world and living in the lap of luxury and doing whatever she wanted to do.

So finally, in my search, I did a little reading about soldier's wives and how they cope, spiritually. I found a group who meets on the army base. They are women of all denominations and they have a Bible reading support group. I always grit my teeth a little when a bunch of people get together for "Bible study" on their own, because that is just a recipe for potential disaster. But here is the conclusion this group came to, an idea to which they cling: their soldier husbands do not belong to them. They belong to God.

And as such, they cope by understanding their role as servants. Their husbands are serving. And the women are serving, too, just in a different way.

To that end, I recommend St. Zita, the ultimate servant. That's all Zita ever was. She wasn't the wife of a nobleman soldier or the mother of anyone, let alone a saint. She was the maid.

She was such a pious good girl that for quite a while, no one liked her. People are suspect of goodness, sadly. She was beaten and overworked and given every terrible job from the time she clocked in at age 12. But nothing could shake her calm, nothing could destroy her deep sense of inner peace. She loved everyone anyway. Eventually, her relentless goodness won everyone over, as its relentlessness proved its sincerity. Zita was made the head of the whole household.

What was her secret? She felt that her work and her place in life was God's will and therefore she was doing what was assigned to her by God. She did it masterfully, always tending the needs of others, studying them to anticipate their needs.

And she had a very happy ending. She died peacefully in her sleep in her old age in her attic room. Her soul was seen flying out of the house accompanied by angels. Her incorrupt body is still with us. It's in a glass case that someone like her has to polish.

Angels and Demons

2011-12-28T13:14:00.000-08:00

Sister, I have a question for you: Do angels and demons, or the devil share any characteristics with God? I ask because we talk about the devil tempting us or about a guardian angel watching over us...So does that mean that they can be in many places at once and see into our hearts and know things we can't know? Thank you and thank you for your great work for the Church!

We all share characteristics with God. We are made in His image and likeness. I don't believe that notion has gone out any windows. Angels and devils certainly share characteristics. God made them, too. All devils were once angels.

In our attempt to understand the supernatural, which is beyond our understanding, we picture angels and devils as beings like us except the good ones have wings and halos and the bad ones have horns and tails wings. The unfortunate down side of this characterization is that it makes devils look more powerful than angels. They are so often giant and red, with massive horns and long fingernails, while angels are sweet faced Swedish looking types. I think that is by artistic design to remind us, if not scare the devil out of us, about what we're up against.

But always remember who won the battle in the first place. The angels won. That should tell us who to back. That's why I never understood these silly people who want to be Satanists and worship the devil and all that nonsense. I understand how people make the mistake of following earthly evil, like say, Hitler, because of their misguided notions and fears. But why would anyone want to follow the thing that lost the battle and the power in the first place in the pursuit of power on earth with the full understanding that after that's over, it all adds up to eternity in Hell? Because if you are a follower of Satan, you do believe in an afterlife and Hell, or you couldn't believe in Satan in the first place. So, really, how dumb can you get?

I digress.

What was the question? Oh, yes! the characteristics of God.

We don't know what angels and devils actually look like. When angels appear in the Bible, they look just like us, but they are able to come and go supernaturally. Tobias travels all over with his friend, Raphael, who happens to be an archangel. They seem to all appear as young men (who are created in God's likeness). Abraham has some angels over for lunch.

When the devil comes to tempt Jesus in the desert, we really don't get a description of him. We never see the demons that afflict humans through possession, we just see the ugly results. The devil in the desert rather seems to be walking around talking to Jesus like a person, but the devil does show Jesus visions of how great it would be if Jesus would give up all the God stuff and follow Satan instead. Jesus, who has a brain in His head, says no. That certainly would have been a coup for the devil, to have the Second Person in the Holy Trinity on his side.

But the devil is always a loser.

My point is that angels and devils, though we have seen them in rather human form, are not humans. Angels are not human beings who have died and gone to Heaven and devils are not human beings who have died and gone to Hell. If an angel "doesn't have his wings", he's just not that kind of angel, despite what SzuSzu's teacher said. Angels don't even need wings to travel around, as Tobias and Abraham can attest.

As beings that God created, we assume they, too, have some of His characteristics. What your question actually refers to is their supernatural powers, like bi-location and what geeks call 'shape-shifting', like taking on human form. I'm not sure if they can 'see into our hearts'. I wouldn't put it past them. There are humans who have those powers, like Padre Pio (who could also bi-locate).

Just keep in mind that these gifts, like the gift of life itself, come from God. The devil shows us that we always have a choice in how to use our gifts.

Tread Thou in Them Boldly

2011-12-26T11:21:00.000-08:00

Today is the day the Good King Wenceslaus looked out at the snow that was deep and crisp and even. Actually, it's not today, it's tonight, because the moon was bright (although the frost was cruel). The Good King spotted a poor man gathering wood for his fire. He asked his page if the page knew where the poor man lived, and the page knew exactly where the poor man lived. So Wenceslaus told the page to make up a box of groceries and stuff with a plan to bring it to the poor man so they could sit and watch him eat it all.

Nothing would have happened without the page, really. The king wouldn't have known where to find the man and even if he could have figured it out, he would have had to get the groceries together himself. I'll bet the page carried all the stuff once they went out, too, because otherwise, if you think about it, why did he have to go out there with the King? It wasn't the page's idea he had already told Wenceslaus where to head.

We never hear anything about what happened once they reached the poor man's house. We are more interested in what happened on the way, when the poor page nearly froze to death but was saved by Wenceslaus' hot foot tracks.

Today is the second day of Christmastime, a time of hope and love. May your footsteps also leave a warm path in the world.

Away in a Manger

2011-12-24T22:31:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! Love to you all! And to all a great dinner with family, loved ones, needy strangers, all the candy you can eat and while the beautiful Light shines on you.

And snow, if you like that. And no snow, if you don't.

Three French Hens

2011-12-22T14:18:00.000-08:00

Advent is almost over! Can you believe it? We're so excited. Our lights are up and ready to light! We don't have a tree. We usually do that about a week before Christmas, but...maybe today! Here is the Wisconsin Advent calender to mark the remaining days.

Back to work!
Dear Sister Mary Martha, I have been recently diagnosed with OCD. Are there any saints you recommend? I know St. Dymphna is the patron saint of mental illness, but I thought it would be nice to know if there were a saint who personally went through that sort of pain. While putting a name to my psychological struggle has helped me some, I need all the help I can get. God bless.

One of our dear readers jumped on and did my job for me by suggesting St.Alphonsus Ligori. Perfection. As she points out, St. Alphonsus was saddled with "scupulosity", a form of OCD. He agonized over the smallest things, fueled no doubt by "Catholic guilt".

I'm not sure if our reader knew how very perfect St. Alphonsus is for you, although her fast answer causes me to suspect she does. It seems that Alphonsus was able to work around his own struggle because his contribution to theology was his teaching that we should not be too rigid.

He opposed sterile legalism and strict rigorism. According to Alphonsus, those were paths closed to the Gospel because "such rigor has never been taught nor practiced by the Church". His system of moral theology is noted for its prudence, avoiding both laxism and excessive rigor. This coming from a man who also was schooled in the arts. He was a musician and painted, wrote poetry and books.

With all of that going on, OCD and all, he became a Doctor of the Church. There are only 33 of those, so he is one special person. As are you, my dear!

Sister, is there a patron saint for nerve damage? My best friend suffers from dystonia and she is having a very bad flare up. I have neuropathy caused by autoimmune disease and am having a flare up too. Both of us are in our early 40s and when we feel well, crochet, knit, and sew for charity. We are praying a Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes because I always pray to her or to St. Bernadette for everything. Thank you! Laura (and Mary)

I think you are on the right track with Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Bernadette.

But I poked around a bit and came up with St. Gemma, as well. She died in 1903, so we know a lot of details about her life, complete with actual photographs and the like. Now, she didn't have the same afflictions as you and your friend, but she was horribly afflicted just the same. At age 19 she became very sick, was in horrible pain, had to wear a painful back brace, all her hair fell out and she was on her death bed. She was 19 years old.

She was visited by (then) Blessed Gabriel Possenti, who is now St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows (because of his devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows) and he facilitated her over night cure. He was canonized in 1920, so I think Gemma might have been one of his saint clinching miracles.

After her miraculous cure Gemma was blessed with a new affliction: the stigmata.

Let me just point out that the Church, upon hearing about a person with the stigmata, doesn't react by saying, "Oh boy! Another stigmata person! A holy miracle that will bring more people to God!" The reaction is more along the lines of, "Oh dear. Not again. If this person is faking it, (or crazy) it will drive more people away from God." As a result, Gemma's stigmata caused her suffering in more ways than one.

In any case, her life is well documented and I invite you to read up.

I should think if you turn to St. Gemma, St. Gabriel might be along for the ride. A two-fer, as they say.

And then what?

2011-12-21T13:15:00.000-08:00

Hello! I'm a recent follower of your blog, and I have a question for you. I'm feeling very dissatisfied with my present life, but there should be no reason for this. I'm recently married, young (24), have a good job and finished school. To make a long story short, I had a very traumatic childhood which caused me to lose my faith in God and everyone around me, but I am slowly finding my place again. Despite all this, I feel like there is something more that I'm not getting, and its bringing me much unhappiness. Is there a Saint that could help me out?

Merry Christmas!

Did you know that your brain isn't even fully formed until you're 23 years old? I figure it takes at least another two years to get all those new brain cells and synapses up to speed. I always think of this when I hear about people who want to try children as adults. There's a reason they can't vote or drive, isn't there?

I digress.

Glad to hear you're on your way up. That should count for something. I have a hunch that the thing you are not getting is outside yourself.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think it's very smart to put your own oxygen mask on first before you assist someone else, because if you flap all around trying to help someone else without any oxygen of your own, you will soon be unable to help anyone do anything but remember to use their legs when lifting your carcass off the plane.

But it sounds like you've made great strides in this direction. It could be that you're not feeling fulfilled because you're not doing anything really fulfilling. Oh sure, you're married and have your whole life ahead of you. For some people, that is extremely fulfilling. For some people, praying all day in a cell works.

Perhaps it is because of your traumatic childhood, for you, there is a piece missing. And of course! we have a patron saint for that.

I've actually told his story many times here on the blog, as he is one of my favorite saints. St. John of God was one of those people who drifted through life doing whatever made him a few dollars and got him through the day. He was a soldier for a while. He sold holy cards and pamphlets for a while, not because he was doing good, but because they were salable. He eventually had a nervous breakdown.

Let's hope you can avoid this step in the process.

While he was in a mental health facility (which would have been absolutely nothing like a place called that in our time), God paid him a call. God pointed out that John was just living for himself and floating around lost. He asked John to live for Him, and gave John the name "John of God".

And after that, upon his release into the world, John became a tireless help to God. He took over an abandoned building and made it into a hospital, all by himself. He begged for bedding, beds and bed pans. He personally cared for the sick there. And when the place caught on fire, he personally carried everyone out and then went back in to get the precious begged for mattresses.

Find your passion. Don't worry that the job is too big, or you're not up to the task. Just make sure you have your oxygen mask firmly in place.

Christmas-y Christmas Carols

2011-12-19T20:27:00.000-08:00

Wow! What happened? It's nearly Christmas! The little kids are about ready to jump out of their skins. A great time to put on some Christmas music!

Dear Sister: Could you please explain the origin of some more obscure carols. Good St. Wenseslaus, I Saw Three Ships, Holly and Ivy, Bring a Torch, Jeannette Isabella...they all seem religious but they are a far cry from the nativity scene and Silent Night. They are lovely though. Thanks.

Not a far cry, really at all. Silent Night was a little ditty a priest dashed off one afternoon for his guitar mass in the evening. It's not his fault, nor was it his plane, that it became the most beloved Christmas Carol of all time, sung by every one from Bing Crosby to Jon Bon Jovi, whoever that is.

"Good King Wenseslaus" (written by a Brit in 1853) isn't Christmas-y enough for you? Really? The feast of Stephen is during that time of year when we think of the poor Baby Jesus and we help the poor. It actually takes place during Christmas Time, which doesn't start until Christmas day. It is the second day of Christmas, Dec.26th. (St. Stephen is the first martyr, who was stoned to death, and therefore the patron saint of headaches.) Off the Good King goes, into the snowy night, knowing that there is a poor man out there who needs his help. A Christmas miracle occurs, heating his footsteps so that his hapless page doesn't get frostbite or die of hypothermia. The page follows his King and trusts in him as we follow ours.

Not rocket science. The story may not be true, but the Good King is real. He was St. Wenceslaus, the Duke of Bohemia.

"I Saw Three Ships" is perfectly Christmas-y. It mentions Christmas day over and over and over. It's a British song that was written in the 17th century and some people think that it is inspired by the three ships that brought the relics of the Three Kings to the Cologne Cathedral int the 12th century. (Which are most surely not there actual relics, since there is no indication how many of them there . The number three originates for the number of actors it took to portray them in the early Passion plays.) That being said, it actually makes no sense whatsoever. The ships come sailing into Bethlehem, which is not possible, as Bethlehem is no where near the Dead Sea, the closest body of water. Crazy.
And one would right away imagine that the three ships represent the three wise men, but no, Jesus and Mary are on the ships. No mention of Joseph. Why do they need three ships for two people, and why didn't they bring Joseph? Am I missing something here?

And it sounds like a drinking song.

"The Holly and the Ivy" is all about Jesus and Mary and all the symbolism of what the holly and the ivy represent are explained, point blank, in the song. It's all the song is about. It's origins are very old, as it was a folk song about boys and girls that somehow, at some time, morphed itself into a Christmas song. That's the best I can do. But it is certainly not a far cry from the Nativity Scene, as it is all about Jesus and Mary as found symbolically in holly and ivy, which have been used as Christmas decorations for centuries.

And of all of these songs, "Bring a Torch" is only about the Nativity Scene. We like to imagine what it would be like if we were there in Bethlehem when Jesus was born and this song imagines just that, only in French. It's a very old carol, from 1553, but the music was originally dance music for nobility. Even today, little French children dress up as shepherds and angels and sing the song around the manger scene. Sound familiar?

I'm just glad you didn't bring up that sad depressing song about the Holy Innocents. Once that thing gets stuck in my head, I can't get it out.

Behave Yourself

2011-12-15T15:03:00.000-08:00

I hope you all always read the comments section. Our readers are knowledgeable and helpful, compassionate and stern. And they have great ideas!

I was just at Heaven Help Us. Are there no more "be Good" coasters? And could you make a "Be Good" medallion in glass?

And, related to this blog, maybe a "Just Let It Go" or "Offer It UP" medallion would be good.

To back up a bit, one of our best selling items was some little coasters we made that said "Behave Yourself" on them. We also made mouse pads with that image and one that said "Offer it up!"

They were rather hard to make and we always had to wait on supplies and ruin materials. Instead of offering all that up, we threw up our hands.

But a glass "Behave Yourself" pendant? Hallelujah! Yes! And thanks so much for the great idea!

Flirting with Lucy

2011-12-14T17:54:00.000-08:00

I always seem to be a day late in giving you a Catholic "heads up". I missed St. Nicholas day last week, not in real life, but here on the blog. Here at the convent, I was able to surprise Sister St. Aloysius with a "Ten Commandments" pen. There is a little panel in the pen and every time you click the ball point in and out, a couple of Commandments appear in the the little window there. I'd like to go pass them out at that court house that had to have the Ten Commandments removed from the lawn, or wherever they were.

Mind you, I don't have a problem with the Ten Commandments not being in front of the court house. It's not against the law to take the Lord's name in vein, covet your neighbor's wife or not worship God.

I digress.

Yesterday, I missed the opportunity to remind you about the feast of St. Lucy, which is a big deal in many parts of the world and very Christmas-y, as it involves candles. My bad, in particularly in light of today's question from a reader:

I'm a young Catholic woman currently in college, and I'm certainly not immune to my school's hook-up culture. In fact, some days almost all I think about is sex and men (and by men I mean man-candy and not man-dignified-human-being). Also, while I'm still a virgin, I've done some things I'm not proud of. Any words of advice on how to keep sane and curb sexual frustration so I can actually focus on what's important in my life? As someone who must take a vow of chastity, I assume you're an Olympic champion at this. Thank you!

Remember that movie, "The Graduate"? Remember how the famous line from that film is the one word of advice someone gives the graduate?

"I have one word of advice. Plastic."

I have two words of advice for you. Hair shirt.

Seriously, why do you think people wore hair shirts? Here's why. They are painful. Pain is distracting.

Okay. I know you're not going to wear a hair shirt. But you are going to have to, as you say, focus.

St. Lucy was a lovely young girl who was engaged. But she lived during a time when the whole idea of Christianity was very new. The idea that anyone would want to stay chaste based on the teachings of a hobo who was executed was difficult to comprehend. So her boyfriend didn't really mind too much when she was thrown into prison. He figured she would come to her senses.

I would have thought that, too, if I were him.

But she knew what was really important.

It seems to me that that is the element you're missing here. What's really important.

Or...

...it's not that important to you. Clearly, it has some importance, as you bothered to ask. I think you have to examine your priorities.

So, St. Lucy, it is, for you. She certainly had her priorities straight. She lost her eyes and her life. In that order. We're not entirely sure what went on with her eyes. Either they were gouged out to get her to change her mind or, in one version of her story, her boyfriend had always admired her eyes so she pulled them out herself, to show him she meant business.

You can see that no matter what did or did not happen, she was quite determined.

Her situation certainly makes your situation look like a walk in the park (a park where there are no boys or half price drinks on lady's night).

Patron Saint Round Up

2011-12-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

We have some urgent requests!!!!!!!!

I thought I would overuse punctuation to punctuate the urgency.

Sister--HELP--who is the patron saint of finals week and midterms? Thanks ever so much.

I'd have to go with St. Thomas Aquinas, who was called "the Dumb Ox" when he was in school. It might not have been because he wasn't smart. It might have been because he was weight endowed and didn't talk much. But he wasn't known as the best student due to his unfortunate nickname.

He's perfect for you because he ended up being the smartest guy in the room, as they say, one of our most cherished and heeded theologians. When Aquinas finally did start talking, he really had something to say and everyone is still listening.

Who to ask for help when you're pulling out all of your hair because of a disobedient teenager??

Oh, duh. There actually is a designated saint for mothers of teens. Snap. Eye roll. Tongue to teeth noise. Stand on on foot and throw the hip to the side.

St. Monica had the most unruly son ever. Her son, Augustine, made a point out of doing whatever he liked. Booze, women...you name it. He even prayed that there would be no reason to interrupt his lifestyle, like having to think about the fires of Hell.

Monica never gave up. She prayed and lectured and finger wagged relentlessly and her nagging paid off. Her son became, like St. Thomas Aquinas, not only a saint, but a Doctor of the Church and one of the most shining examples the Church has ever had.

I'm told that when the Spanish Conquistadors arrived on the West Coast, they found a rock that was burbling water endlessly and it reminded them of Monica, endlessly crying for her son. They named the place Santa Monica, as a result.

In the meantime, while you're pulling your hair out, you might want to ask for the intercession of St. Wilgefortis.

Hello Sister,
I was wondering if you could tell me who is the patron saint to save failing marriages and/or of wives who have been cheated on? I don't believe in divorce but I need a whole lot of help to heal the hurt.
Thank you for your time.

There are two that spring to mind. The first is St. Helen, whose husband dumped her for the new model. He was the Emperor and when he died, his son took over the world and turned it all Christian and made his mother the Empress. Actually, it was because of St. Helen that her son, St. Constantine, was converted, so we owe her a lot. As if that wasn't enough of an achievement, she also found the True Relics of the Cross.

And St. Rita, who really only wanted to become a nun, but was married to the most miserable man, so miserable that the mob bumped him off. She eventually was able to enter the convent, where she received the Stigmata. Not the whole thing, just the Crown of Thorns. Actually, not the whole Crown of Thorns...just one thorn. The wound festered and caused her to have to stay alone in her cell because of the putrid smell. But ever after her death, the room has smelled of roses.

We'll keep you in our prayers. You might also consider the patronage of St. Maria Goretti, who was able to forgive the unforgivable.

Just Do Something

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

I'm a convert (2003) and I never understood the concept of "offering it up" until I read your blog post on the topic ( which I found a year or so ago--I read through your archive, too). Cradle Catholics were frustrated with me for not "just doing it". Only after I read your blog did I realize that the "it" isn't the suffering, but the right to gripe about it. Since you were so good at helping me understand the concept, I'm hoping you'll be able to willing to help me understand how to offer back to God the suffering of Jesus and the body/blood/soul/divinity of the Divine Chaplet. They aren't mine to offer and why does God want the suffering back? What's He supposed to to with it? I've googled the question and it only comes up with with ever more incessant reasons to "offer it up", not what to actually do.

I'm afraid you've misunderstood me to some extent. We offer the suffering as well!

"Just Do It" shouldn't just be the Nike slogan.

Wait. Is it the Nike slogan? It's somebody's slogan, isn't it?

Anyhow, your cradle Catholic friends are giving you excellent advice. We don't have to understand everything, every second. Of course, the deeper our understanding the better, but sometimes our actions can lead us to understanding.

Poor dumb little Bernadette didn't know what in the world the lady was talking about when she answered, when asked her name, "I am the Immaculate Conception." She may just as well have said, "I am Santa Claus, Ho! Ho! Ho!" It would have made as much sense to Bernadette. It didn't impact her devotion even a little bit.

So, let's try this again. We do offer up our suffering and our prayers. Prayers are easy to understand. They are an offering. We pray for the souls of the departed, offer our prayers for them. You've got that, right? We'll get back to the Divine Chaplet in a moment.

Meanwhile: suffering. I think of it the way mothers think about their children. If you could trade your suffering for theirs, you would.

So, you stub your toe, and you say to God, "God, I'd like to trade this suffering for my poor Aunt Minnie there in Purgatory. I'll suffer for her for a moment. It's the least I can do." Although, I don't think you should pick and choose. For all you know, Aunt Minnie has made it onto Heaven. Or she never made it to Purgatory. Uh-oh. I recommend just praying for the souls in Purgatory.

My point with offering your suffering gladly was simply to point out that a gift given grudgingly is not a very good gift. If you're complaining, you're keeping the suffering for yourself, aren't you? I think so.

I hope the Divine Chaplet won't flummox you too much. Start with this thought paramount in your brain: here in the Catholic Church, we are One with Christ. He is the Bridegroom, She is the Bride. We are united.

So, God demanded the ultimate sacrifice from Jesus and Jesus offered that sacrifice. And since we're one with Jesus, we get to offer that sacrifice right along with Him. The Eucharist makes the same offering.

I don't know what God wants to do with it. It seemed very important to Him, though, as He went through a lot of trouble to make it happen. Here's something else Cradle Catholics understand. God didn't make us capable of understanding everything about Him. Some things remain what we call a "Sacred Mystery".

Cradle Catholics understand that "Sacred Mystery" is "Catholic" for "Just Let It Go."

Of Mice and Advent

2011-12-07T13:51:00.000-08:00

Advent is not all fun and games. Although it's not Lent, we are supposed to prepare ourselves for Jesus' arrival, which, considering the shape in which many of us find ourselves, could take some work. Hence the timeliness of today's question:

Sister, I am new to all this, but I love your blog. Can you explain exactly what you mean by 'offering it up'? Are there certain prayers that you use?

I assume you are not being sarcastic- but not totally sure...

I volunteer with a lot of nuns, and am amazed by their toughness, warmth an energy!

I am SO not being sarcastic.

First, let's revisit what we mean by "offering it up". You're not a cradle Catholic, are you? Somehow, that is something people raised in the faith just...get. But here you go. I'll wait while you catch up.

Are we on the same page now? Any prayers will do, but there are prayers that are expressly for the souls in Purgatory. There are two St. Gertrudes and they are both famous for their devotion to the souls in Purgatory. St. Gertrude the Great has a prayer for you to say. St. Gertrude of Nevilles is the patron saint of cat lovers.

But that was because she thought of the mice overrunning the convent as a metaphor for the souls in Purgatory and since she was so interested in mice she became the patron saint of cat lovers, because cats are very interested in mice, too.

Our newer cat, Chester, is a fine mouser but leaves his gory leftovers on the bathmat. Go in to wash your hands and suddenly you're in a cat horror movie.

I digress.

It's not just prayers we offer up, but our sufferings, large and small. Nuns tend to be energetic and tough precisely because they are so highly trained in doing this. You'll be amazed at the burden that is lifted from you when you're sufferings are no longer your own, but going to a greater good.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

2011-12-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

Sister do you know anything about Chantal a monk that is honored in Mexico? I do not mean St. Jane Francis Chantal.
Thanks,
a loyal reader

Of course you don't, because St. Jane Frances Chantal would not have been a monk.

But no, I've never heard anything about any St. Chantal who is a monk honored in Mexico. Another one of out readers guessed that perhaps you're thinking of St. Charbel, and I am sure that reader is correct. St. Charbel is indeed well revered in Mexico. Here he is standing atop a mountain of prayer requests at the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral.

St. Charbel is quite a character. I am often asked if the Catholic Church believes in ghosts and the answer is yes, sort of. St. Charbel could well be the patron saint of ghostbusters. He was canonized because he made a rather ghostly appearance in a photograph.

I didn't mean that, exactly. I should say, his appearance in a photograph led to his canonization.

St. Charbel was a Lebanese monk. (Danny Thomas could have chosen him instead of St. Jude, but St. Charbel wasn't canonized at the time that Mr. Thomas found himself down and out and praying for the intercession of St. Jude, because St. Charbel hadn't shown up in a picture yet.)

In his life, he was a very hermity hermit, living 23 years in monastic silence and fasting continually. He always knelt in his cell from midnight until 9am, even though he had a hair mat on which to sleep. No one ever saw his face. He wore a hood, never made eye contact with anyone, and kept his head down. Nonetheless, he was well known in the nearby town as a very holy man and people sought his blessings.

And since this is Advent, the time just before Christmas season, let's also have a look at St. Charbel's death. On Dec. 16th, 1898, Charbel had a stroke and on Christmas eve he laid down on his mat face up with his eyes closed. He wasn't asleep.

That night there was a huge snow storm and the other monks were afraid that they wouldn't be able to take his body from the monastery to bury it in the church over in town. They were also afraid that they wouldn't be able to tell anyone from the town. How would they get word out? And even if they did, would that cause people to come out in the bitter raging cold to gather around the body?

And while they were there trying to decide all of that, they were amazed at how freezing cold it was in Charbel's cell of 23 years, the one in which he only knelt all night. And while they were being amazed, somehow the townspeople got wind of Charbel's death and shoveled their way up to the monastery.

Now it was Christmas Day and the snow was even worse, with blowing, howling wind. But they set off with the saint's body. The wind and snow stopped and down they went.

Now we fast forward to 1925, when Pope Pius XI thought about beatifying Charbel. In death, Charbel's grave had glowed with light. But these things take time, often centuries. Then, in 1950, an American priest from Scranton, PA was visiting Charbel's monastery and took a photograph of his tour group. When the picture was developed, there stood Charbel in their midst.

Who ya gonna call?

Things moved along a little faster after that, with many miracles occurring. Beatified in 1965, St. Charbel was admitted to the Heavenly Hall of Fame in 1977. He has been spotted time and again in his hood, his eyes lowered as in life.

Gluten Free Saint

2011-12-05T14:23:00.000-08:00

Can you believe we're already into the second week of Advent? I can't.

That being said, since Advent is all about good news, I have some for you. I have found the perfect patron saint for Catholics who are gluten intolerant or otherwise digestively challenged to the point where they can no longer partake in the Eucharist!

I was just posting a brand new saint for the shop and was doing some research on her when I had my light bulb moment.

Bear with me here. You won't see the connection right away, but it's a big one when we get to it.

St. Alice was a Cistercian nun. She actually entered the convent at age seven. Everyone noticed what a lovely humble girl she was. Unfortunately, poor Alice contracted leprosy. She suffered terribly. Eventually she lost her sight and became paralyzed.

St. Alice is, in fact, the patron saint for the blind and paralyzed, or the just blind, or the just paralyzed.

Now, let me just take a moment to say that we've had quite a number of discussions here on the blog about the plight of the wheat, yeast, gluten intolerant and I've always felt rather badly about not having the perfect patron saint for them. St. Charles Borromeo is as close as I could come, as he is the patron saint of stomach and intestinal problems.

But St. Charles holds that title because his brothers didn't much take to his disciplinary activities and tried to shoot him, which could give anyone a stomach ache.

But Alice! To the moon!

You see, St. Alice had one great comfort in life, which was, of course, the Holy Eucharist. She was devastated not to be able to receive under both species (ringing a bell, stomachers?) because she was not allowed to drink from the Cup for fear of contagion, what with her leprosy and all. Here's where it all comes together: Jesus appeared to her and told her it was perfectly fine for her to go with just one species.

Right? It's a good one! St. Alice knows exactly how you feel about your situation.

Welcome to the shop, St. Alice!

Annoyed by Jesus

2011-12-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

Hi, Sister. My roommate is driving me crazy. (And vice versa.) Any saints for us?

Offer it up! What do you think it's like to be room mates with the souls in Purgatory? I bet some of them are pretty annoying, given the fact that they haven't made it to Heaven yet and they are suffering constantly. Offer up your suffering for them.

It's Advent, after all. As we prepare to walk in the steps of Jesus, let's remember that His disciples got on his last nerve on numerous occasions. Think of all the times they ran to Him with their hair on fire, worried about what people thought of them, frightened that He was too generous and forgiving. They were aggravated with Him, too.

He was very patient with them. And He always used the situation to turn it into a teaching moment. Even as a child, calmly explaining to His parents where He was while they panicked and fretted, that He was simply doing His job, holding a Q&A for the elders at the Temple.

Or when His Mother asked Him to save the wedding party that ran out of wine. He explained to her that He really wasn't supposed to start in with the miracles just yet. But He did do what His Mother asked and changed the water into wine. Really good wine at that.

Let me just digress and point out, as per our recent discussion about the separated brethren and their stubborn attitude toward Mary, in particularly, refusing to ask for her intercession, that if you're going to point to what's in the Bible as the be all and end all of what we are to believe about Jesus, than you've clearly really missed the point of this event. The point being: Jesus listens to His Mom. Against His better judgment.

What were we talking about? Oh yes! Putting up with your room mate!

So Jesus had lots and lots of annoying moments with pretty much everyone around Him, including those closest to Him. So this Advent, let's all take a deep breath and emulate Jesus and love them anyway. That's step one.

Meanwhile, a patron saint for annoying room mates? Yes! Of Course! St. Therese the Little Flower. Living in a cloister with a bunch of other girls is no picnic. St. Therese kept a tidy journal of every irritant so that she could be sure and not miss any opportunity to offer up her sufferings to the Poor Souls in Purgatory.

Have you heard of St. Therese sacrifice beads? It's a little set of ten sliding beads so that you, too, can count your sufferings to the tune of at least ten per day. I can make you some, if you like!

A Different Kind of Dark Knight

2011-11-30T13:13:00.000-08:00

Hi Sister Mary Martha,

My younger sister committed suicide four years ago. Is there a saint that I could ask for prayers for her soul? I have asked, but I keep getting different answers.

Thanks.

How unbearably sad. You'll be comforted to know that the Church does not pass judgment on those who have taken their own lives. While it is considered to be a mortal sin, we don't know the person's state of mind, a persona who may well have not been rational at the time of the act. Your sister may well be already in Heaven.

I would turn to Mother Teresa, who was very well known for her own dark night of the soul, which plagued her for almost her entire life. She would understand the torment of hopelessness and abandonment, the purpose of a patron saint: someone who understands your issues and can intercede on your behalf, or in this case, your sister's behalf. She would also well understand your own anxiety.

We'll keep you both in our prayers.

Happy New Year!

2011-11-28T23:14:00.000-08:00

A reader pipes up:
You forgot to say, "Happy New Year."

Yes, I did! Happy New Year! To celebrate, here's a little New Year's baby for you.

We don't make a big fuss about this being our New Year. It's not like Chinese New Year or one of those other other than Jan. 1 New Year's things.

But it is indeed the beginning of the new year for the Church. Advent is the beginning of the calendar, which we use to align ourselves with the Life of Christ.

It always seemed to me that the calendar should start with Jesus' birthday, and while that makes sense, it doesn't really work, because we have so much to do to prepare. If Advent wasn't the beginning of the calendar year we'd be doing all of that outside of time, so to speak.

In any case...Happy New Year! Here we go!

Prepare Ye A Way!

2011-11-27T23:55:00.000-08:00

Whew! Good-bye Thanksgiving! Hello Advent!

Yes! Advent already started. We'll be getting out the giant manger scene and dusting off the sheep. I think we'll take a little drive and get some new straw. You can't dust straw. Well, you can, but if we were going to do that we'd save it as an activity for Lent. As it is, we'll offer up our suffering whilst sneezing repeatedly throwing the old straw out.

I trust many of you have your Advent calendars at the ready. Advent wreaths and candles are getting fired up. What's it all about?

We look to our old pal, St. John the Baptist, cousin of Jesus, who should also be known as "The Inventor of Advent". Mind you, had John the Baptist not invented Advent, we would have come up with it just the same. We like to take four weeks to prepare for major invents in our yearly calendar of following the path of Jesus, and since His birth is one of those events, Advent would have just happened on its own.

But St. John the Baptist spent quite a bit more time than four weeks preparing the Way of the Lord. He was baptizing people on a daily basis for Heaven only knows how long. Since we've already got the baptism part covered, what's left to do?

It's interesting, isn't it that Mr. Baptist was shouting that we should prepare a way for the Lord. He could have said, "Jesus is coming, get ready." Or the currently popular, "Jesus is coming, look busy." (I'm afraid that is exactly what many people are doing.) But no, St. John wants us to prepare a way for the Lord.

I take that to mean we need to examine what it means to follow a way for the Lord. John tells us "make the way straight. This road we must be on with Jesus has to be straightened out and once that's accomplished we still have to travel on it. It's really a hard road, because almost no one is ever on it. You'll be out there on your own, turning the other cheek and loving your enemies, while everyone around you will try to convince you that you must protect yourself at all costs and keep whatever you can lay your hands on and put it someplace safe for when you need it and so you'll have something to leave your children when you die.

Jesus said, "Take no shoes, take no purse..." I think it's okay for you to wear shoes. (Although you only need that one pair you've got on if you shop wisely.) Some of you would actually die if you didn't wear them, those of you in Minnesota, for example. But you'll be on the Way with no money, or just what you've got in your pockets. Jesus says you should consider that God takes care of lilies and makes them beautiful and the lilies know that.

So on top of everything else that is going to make this lonely and difficult and seemingly futile, you have to just stop worrying about it and head on out.

It's too bad we Catholics don't believe in luck, because it seems like we'll need a little.

Lent is also a time of preparation. What's the difference between Lent and Advent? Joy.

Make the way straight. Prepare with Joy. And Santa (who is actually a Catholic saint) and stir. Egg nog with brandy is not far away.

A Welcoming Thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T12:33:00.000-08:00

Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I thought today's question might give us something for which to be thankful. Not that that is a tall order. If you woke up this morning, you've already got that covered. But I thought a happy story might enhance our festivities.

Sister, I am sorry to ask a question in your comments spot,but I haven't figured out how to ask questions on this blog, so here goes.
I was born and raised Southern Baptist, but as a young woman I became interested in other religions.
Catholicism was an eye-opener. All of a sudden, the Bible stories I heard as a child lost the dry, dusty, not quite done feel. The Catholic version was more real, more full-bodied. As time has gone on, I have learned more and more about Catholicism.
Now, I am ready to go to the priest and ask to go to classes so I can be baptized a Catholic.
Is there a saint that intercedes for almost Catholics?

YAY! Welcome! Particularly timely and wonderful in lieu of the last couple of posts what with our discussion of the Bible and all. Delightful!

And OF COURSE, there are saints for converts. The truth is, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of them, since so many saint spent their lives converting people. You could go for the North American Martyrs, for example. They'd be happy to help!

But perhaps you're looking for a convert who became a saint. You could turn to the original convert saint, St. Paul. He wasn't just any convert. He was a persecutor of Christians before Jesus knocked him off his high horse. He turned out to be quite the convert. Like an ex-smoker in his zealotry.

God love those ex-smokers. For one thing, they've stopped smoking. Then they become really rapid anti-smokers. Good for them! I think it's because they finally realized how terrible they smelled. That is quite a revelation to them, it seems, once they can smell things again.

I remember when I was five, by little best friend who lived up the block had a stuffed monkey that she left at my house. It smelled so...weird. Bad. I had never smelled anything like that, and this is back in the day when adults sat around smoking whenever they were and whoever they were with, infant or octogenarian. My mother said, "That's because they smoke." I thought that was very odd, because the monkey did not smell like cigarettes or smoke. It just smelled. Poor monkey.

But I digress.

Here is a list of saints who were converts. It's a bit overwhelming. Notice that it includes all of the apostles, who were all Jewish.

Which gives a wonderful idea for you! St. John the Baptist! He was Jewish, became a Christian before the word was invented, started Baptizing people and Baptized Jesus Himself! And the word "Baptist" is right in there!

I think we have a winner!

Happy Thanksgiving! We'll talk again over leftovers!

Angels in the Plains

2011-11-21T21:23:00.000-08:00

While we're on the topic of the separated brethren we have a couple of separate comments and questions about what goes on in the Not Catholic realm.

When I encounter an In-the-bible, Exactly-as-written Evangelical, I ask them, "What about the different Resurrection accounts?"

Did the women see an angel? Did they talk to the Risen Christ?
Did they run to the Disciples and tell them the Body was missing?

Each Apostle emphasized different aspects, may have forgotten or misremembered a detail or two. The important message is there. "He is Risen!"

It's fun.

It IS fun. Are you sure you didn't talk to me first? I've been using that one for years. Great minds and all that. I never went into all that detail, I simply asked, "How many angels were at the tomb after Jesus left the tomb?" And the answer from the Bible is. One.

No. Two.

No. None.

If we take the average number of angels at the tomb the answer is one. Right? I'll ask Sister St. Aloysius. She's a math whiz. She's busy pouring over pie recipes. I don't want to get in the way of that.

In any case, I have used that question numerous times and then....silence...no answer....

I particularly like that question because it's something we all agree happened. We might disagree about what Jesus meant when He said, "Take this and eat, This is My Body..." A lot of people think that direct order was symbolic. But we all agree Jesus rose from the dead. He was in the tomb and then He wasn't. There may or may not have been angels.

And that right there rather closes the argument about how one should think about the Bible, does it not? Unfortunately, we all know it doesn't. It should. But it doesn't.

Here's one I always wondered about: Some, as you call them, separated brethren have ornate churches that resemble ours but some are simply bare and sparse with just a plain, unadorned cross...why? Is it part of their teaching and beliefs, or do they just prefer it that way? Also, where, besides google, do you find other churches beliefs, or catechism, if they call it that? Does everyone have one? Thanks, Sister. Love your blog and your etsy shop is great!

Thanks! Great for stocking stuffers! What better Christmas gift than your own personal patron saint?

But about those churches. The simple answer is that the separated brethren who are most like the Roman Catholic Church (like the Anglican, Episcopal and the Eastern Orthodox Churches) have ornate church buildings. The simple churches come from the Protestant movement. Note the word "protest" right in there.

The Protestant movement arose as a direct response to the Church's ornate wealth in the 15th and 16th centuries. Martin Luther, the granddaddy of the movement was really angry at the Church's fund raising tactics and he wasn't wrong. The Church responded by making necessary changes but that horse was out of the barn.

Of course, it's all way more complicated than that, but that's the deal in a nutshell.

Pecan pie. I'm hoping that's on the agenda. Although last year's sour cream apple was a keeper.

The second part of your question is very intriguing to me. Frankly, I have asked people point blank what they believe, and past "Jesus Saves" I can't get a coherent answer. Episcopals are okay with the saints and Mary (I think...), but the Anglicans and the Episcopals are... Catholic Lite.

And after that, other than "No Mary, No Saints", I'm at a complete loss. Transubstantiation? Yes to some, no to many. Original Sin? No clue. The Holy Trinity? The Holy Spirit? St. Paul? A lot of what Luther believed was from St. Paul. I think. How does one eschew the saints and read the New Testament, when the authors are all saints? Baffling.

I had a book a while back that was one of those "For Dummies" books that traced the origins of the Christian faiths. "Christianity for Dummies", I think it was. It was interesting in that each new sect developed because they disagreed with a thing or two in the sect before. But what they actually believe and don't believe really wasn't in there and left me with more questions than answers.

I have had no luck by asking individuals, either.

And finally, the Crucifix. Again, Catholics for Jesus on the Cross and Protestants go for plain. That's because Catholics feel that we must realize the full measure of Jesus' sacrifice for our salvation. Protestants want to emphasize the resurrection. To which Catholics reply, "That's too easy." It wasn't that easy. It isn't that easy.

The Bible Does Always Win

2011-11-15T23:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Sister Mary Martha-

I couldn't figure out where to post a question, and so I'm posting one in a comment.

But first, let me add that I love your blog! I was raised Catholic, and I'm so happy there's something like this, now that I'm in college with so many different flavors of Christianity on campus.

Which brings me to my next question. I'm being pursued, for lack of a better word, by members of a nation-wide Christian collegiate group called Chi Alpha. Pentecostal-based, it holds that "the Bible always wins." In other words, if it is not specifically word-for-word in the Bible somewhere, it isn't true, never was and never will be.

Don't we also believe that? If so, that rules out a lot. My friends don't believe in infant baptism, Transfiguration, Mary as venerated by Catholics, or the saints.

And what about Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and speaking in tongues? A large majority of my friends speak in prayer languages, ones that they don't understand, but God does.

And the sacraments! Oh, my goodness! Where, I'm constantly asked, is the Biblical reference for Anointing of the Sick and Holy Orders? And papal infallibility, while we're at it?

I may have taken religion classes in Catholic school my entire life, but even that is not enough to render me a walking "Catholic for Dummies."

Thanks again for your blog. I've already used your dinner-making analogy to explain why we heretics pray "to" saints.

Did I say something about dinner and the saints? I don't recall....worse..I probably said it last week.

Your questions involves a lot of Church Doctrine and Dogma. I'll try to give you a quick tutorial, but before I do, there is this thing called the "internet" on which you can find things like "The Catechism of the Catholic Church" and you can type in a topic and find out exactly what the Church says about a lot of things. Just so you know.

Here we go!

First of all, we do believe things that you can't find verbatim in the Bible, but everything we believe is derived from the Bible. For example, there is no mention of Purgatory in the Bible, but in Maccabees (a book that your friends tossed out of their Bible because of this passage) there is an admonishment to "Pray for the dead". There is no need to pray for anyone who is in Heaven or Hell. So who are these dead people for which we are asked to pray? Where are they? The Catholic Church teaches that that passage must refer to where these people are. I can't think of another explanation, can you? They don't have to think about it because they booted that whole book right out of their Bible. (Which is astonishing, when you think about it? These are the people are so very interested in the importance of the words God wrote in His book. So interested that they just threw some away!)

The Immaculate Conception falls into this category, too, as does Papal Infallibility.

On we go.

Did you mean to say "Transubstantiation" instead of "Transfiguration"? The Transfiguration is in the New Testament. Transubstantiation is when the Host turns into the Body of Christ. Google that up!

It always makes me sad that the separated Brethren dismiss Mary. I can't imagine if you had a chance to actually meet the Mother of Jesus, Jesus, who you claim to love so much, that you would just ignore her and not pay her any honor. God certainly honored her, but that's not good enough for you? Holy Toledo! That is just rude.

Next! Baptism of the Holy Spirit. This one is tricky. We do believe in that! But they mean something different by that phrase than we do...I think. We believe the the whole Church was baptized in the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. We baptize babies and they receive the Holy Spirit, but then the Sacrament of Confirmation brings more gifts from the Holy Spirit when the child is old enough to pledge himself to the Church himself and become a "soldier of Christ".

There are Catholic Pentecostals who speak in tongues, but the Church as a whole has frankly never been particularly comfortable with it. I think it's because it can be such a slippery slope if you're babbling in some unintelligible ravings. Possessed people do that, too.

On the home stretch!

Here are the Biblical references to Holy Orders: Acts 20:28; Lk 22:19; Jn 20:22; Acts 6:6; Acts 13:3; Acts 14:22; 1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6; Tit 1:5

And here are the references to Anointing of the Sick: Mk 6:12-13; Jm 5:14

I do hope this helps and bless you for hanging around with these people and trying to know what you're talking about! Come back anytime and we'll keep up the good work together!

Meanwhile here's a great example of how to use this internet thing. I just did a Google search for "Biblical reference to papal infallibility". I even spelled infallibility wrong in the search! I believe I typed infallibiblity (which is probably just about what your friends think of it). And here you have a wonderful, clear, concise explanation that will clear up a lot.

But do come back anytime. Sometimes, it's much more fun to chat than to Google.

Proceed with Caution

2011-11-14T22:46:00.000-08:00

We've had some interesting comments on my comments about the comments that have been made about Medjugorje. Some people are willing to admit that all that glitters may not be a gold rosary. Others are more adamant about Our Lady being a visitor.

If you are worried about the length of time the Blessed Mother is with us here on earth, then what will be your reaction when you reach heaven and have the rest of eternity with her?

The kingdom of heaven? It’s here. It arrived with Jesus. And he teaches us that he is with us always.

Medjugorje? God’s merciful love. Tap into it. Receive it. Enjoy it. Live it. There’s more to come. That’s his promise.

Again, we can make our own decisions about personal revelations. I'm sure many people are indeed profoundly effected by their visits to Medjugorje. But there are very, very good reasons to believe that the committee that studied the apparitions were absolutely correct in their assessment that nothing supernatural is going on here. And there even better reasons to be extremely cautious about jumping in with both feet to a series of events that are not, repeat NOT, approved by the Church as worthy of our devotion.

So let's take an even closer look at why the Church has come up with this pronouncement. What is the criteria by which the Church passes such judgment. There are three major categories for consideration.

1. Banality or lack of dignity.
This is what the Bishop was referring to when he gave off with that list of all the places Mary appeared, from trains, trees, houses....Remember that list? It wasn't even complete. Mary might have been appearing at the bowling alley and in the dryer like she did in Georgia. The Church didn't approve that one either.

So the frivolity of the places isn't enough for you? How about some of these gems:
Besides predicting a Yugoslavian soccer win, Mary also moved one of the seers watch hands when Mary was asked to leave a sign, left several times because she claimed people had trod on her veil and on another occasion got all smeared and dirty because those present had all touched her cloak and her veil.

Banal and undignified. Check.

2. An Apparition Teaching Error and Heresy.
I think having any marks in this category ought to seal the deal, but we still have the other two categories and Medjugorje has filled them all. In any case, here are a two doozies from the hill (or the train or the forest or the grocery store...). "All religions are equal under God." That may comfort the separated brethren, but that would also include Hinduism, Wiccans, and Scientologists, would it not? God may love all His children equally, but He didn't write that whole big book so you could be a Buddhist.

She also asked not to be an intermediary between herself and her Son and to direct all petitions directly to Him! What a nonsensical statement! So why are rosaries turning gold there? The rosary is an intermediary prayer. You remember that part that goes "Hail Mary full of grace....pray for us sinners..."? She can't seem to make up her mind.

3. Undermining the Church's Authority.
Jan. 1982: The Virgin states that two Franciscan priests, removed from their order and under suspension by the bishop, one of whom later fathered a child by a nun, may continue to say Mass and hear Confessions. Vicka the seer is asked "If the Lady said this, and the Pope says that they cannot..." Vicka answers: "The Pope can say what he wants. I'm telling it as it is."

Yikes. It was our current Pope Benedict who defrocked that priest.
There are quite a few more examples in all three categories.

But the Holy See may give Medjugorje tacit approval in some way, perhaps with shrine status. It has already issued statements that the pilgrims must be pastorally supported and that is happening.

In fact the opposite is true. The Church has removed the shrine that had been built. The statements that have been issued about pilgrims being pastorally supported is so that the faith that come there are not lead astray by these events that do not have any support from the Church.

And another Pope Benedict (XIV) that said this:

"We must suspect those apparitions that lack dignity or proper reserve, and above all, those that are ridiculous. This last characteristic is a mark of human or diabolical machination."

Mary All Over Town

2011-11-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

Sister, what is going on with Medjugorje now anyway? I've been hearing mixed things about it.

God bless:)

And you will continue to hear mixed things about it, mainly because people who go there are crazy for it. Perhaps I shouldn't put it that way. "Deeply moved by the experience" would be another way to say that, wouldn't it?

On the face of it, Medjugorje is quite a phenomenon. Six children receive regular visits from the Blessed Mother. She brings messages of peace. The town, in a war torn country, becomes a cradle of peace and prayer, an oasis of all things good.

Meanwhile, virtually everyone who visits there is impressed by the experience. Rosaries turn to gold, a bleeding Host appears in the sun, statues drip with holy oil and visitors leave with a sense of peace that is profound. This has been going on, with no let up for over 20 years now.

The visionary children have grown up and gone away, and one by one, Mary stopped appearing to them, or appeared less frequently. At least one of the girls still lives in Medjugorje and Mary appears to her once a month.

Of course, the Church was called upon to give the apparitions Her blessing, so the matter has been examined and studied, and while the official word from the committee is "cannot be affirmed as supernatural". Finally, in the early 90's, the local Bishop of Medjugorje wrote a letter stating that he was not a believer (which is putting it mildly).

He had a lot to say about it, but he basically made this point: What is Mary's problem that she can't seem to get her point across to six people for over 20 years?

On top of that, the visionaries have been given 'secrets' about the future and whatnot and the reason that Mary is still appearing to some of them, or two of them or one of them or whatever it's boiled down to now, is that she hasn't given them all their secrets yet.

For me, the most compelling "agin it" argument comes from the commission itself. These are the people who spent three years interviewing everyone, pouring over diaries and documents and writings and studying everything with a fine toothed comb. Two of them thought the visions were real, one abstained from voting, two thought that the visions were real at first, but no longer are and eleven of them said the whole thing was not supernatural.

If I had a vote, I'd say no. I haven't been there to have my rosary turn to gold, but this passage from the Bishop's letter has stayed with me. The visions were initially on a hill. And then..."she came into houses, into forests, fields, vineyards and tobacco fields; she appeared in the church, on the altar, in the sacristy, in the choir loft, on the roof, on the church steeple, on the roads, on the way to Cerno, in a car, on busses, in classrooms, in several places in Mostar and Sarajevo, in monasteries in Zagreb, Varazdin, Switzerland and Italy, once again on the Podbrdo, atop Krizevac, in the parish, in the rectory, etc. It is certain that not even half of the places where the alleged apparitions have taken place have been mentioned, so much so that an earnest man—who venerates the Madonna—asked himself: "My Madonna, what are they doing to you?"

What are you supposed to think? Whatever you like. You don't have to believe that Fatima was a supernatural phenomena, either. The Church says it was, but as it came through "personal revelation" (through the visionaries of Fatima), you can do with it what you will.

There is only one thing, as far as I can tell, that you are forbidden to do, and that is to organize a pilgrimage there based on the idea that the apparitions are real and have the blessing of the Church. You can still have a pilgrimage there and come home with a gold rosary.

Paraphrasing St. Augustine: In necessary things unity, in undecided things freedom,and in all things charity.

Post Traumatic Stress Dreamer

2011-11-07T10:39:00.000-08:00

I'm not a doctor, but I play one here on the blog:
Dear Sr Mary Martha,
I have a friend who has quite vivid dreams. She would quite often thrash around, talk and even shout in her sleep, while dreaming. Sometimes, she would even cry in her sleep.
I love your blog, but have always been very 'shy' in making our 'lurking presence' known. But, I had to ask you for a patron saint for my friend who has not had a dreamless sleep ever since she could remember. And I hope to be able to get some divine intercession before it escalates. (She swatted me in her sleep a couple of nights ago!)
She had very unhappy childhood and I have prayed for the Lord's healing on her and had taken her to healing Mass, but it doesn't seem that she is healed, at all of her past hurts and unhappiness. And 70-80% of the times when she got upset in her sleep was because she was dreaming about her parents and/or her past.
The both or us are ok with our Lord's plan for her in this suffering, rather than rush Him. But is there a saint that can help in carry her cross sometimes or fix a wheel on it so it's not so heavy?
Thanks, Sr Mary Martha!

There certainly are saints for that.

But there are also medical solutions for that. She should be evaluated at a sleep clinic. It sounds like she is suffering from a parasomnia called REM sleep behavior disorder.

First of all, no one has dreamless sleep. When REM sleep (the phase of sleep during which dreaming occurs) is not present, people become psychotic very quickly, literally overnight. People who say they do not dream are wrong. They dream. They do not remember their dreams.

It would not be good for her to take her dreams away (unless you want a full on psychotic on your hands), but there are medications that can stop the flailing. It also sounds as though she could use some therapy, to help her deal with her past.

My favorite saint for sweet dreams is St. Joseph.

St. Joseph was visited by angels in his dreams on two important occasions. When he found out his virgin wife was with child, he was not a happy man. An angel explained the situation to him in a dream and the rest is the history of the Catholic Church.

It happened again when the Three Wise Men stopped to ask for directions. The one time in history when a group of men actually stopped to ask for directions and what do they do? Ask the evil King where they might find the "new" King. What were they thinking?

An angel came to Joseph, again in a dream, and warned him to get his family to safety.

That is some helpful dreaming.

I also recommend St. Michael the Archangel, fighter of demons no matter where they are found.

St. Anthony Finds His Own Book

2011-11-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

My husband, who depends greatly on St. Anthony for helping him find things, is wondering about the book. I will try a search, but just in case, could you fill us in? Incidentally, My husband has been enlisting St. Anthony's intercession regarding lost items for years, but didn't even realize that that was his patronage.

Yes, supposedly St. Anthony's patronage of finding lost objects stems from this story:
Quite some time after St. Anthony left this mortal coil, a book that was a relic of his went missing. Since the book was a holy relic of the saint, everyone was duly upset and prayed for the intercession of the saint for its safe return.

The book reappeared. But the explanation was not miraculous.

Some novice had it. He had borrowed it and was very embarrassed to have caused the commotion.

So that's that.

Have a nice weekend everyone! Don't forget to turn your clocks back! You'll have an extra hour. Use it wisely!

Patron Saints for Dark Times

2011-11-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

It's not all chuckles and grins in the world of patron saint matching. We'll keep this reader in our prayers:

Dear Sister Mary Martha,

Love your blog!

My nephew and his wife recently had a baby boy. My nephew has been battling a rare form of cancer for several years and now the battle is over. He is preparing to die. Is there a patron saint for this situation?

How about a saint for restoring one's faith after it has been shaken to the core because of this set of circumstances?

Also, I am in the process of selling my small business and am wondering which patron saint I might pray to for a successful outcome. I found patron saints of business people, but couldn't find anyone to help with selling a business.

Your assistance is much appreciated!

We are so sorry for your family. How very sad. When we say God works in mysterious ways, we are not kidding. I'll spare you the platitudes about doors closing and windows opening, and instead call on the angels for grace and comfort.

Yes, of course are patron saints for your needs.

First up: St. Bernadette of Lourdes, who knew the healing spring was not for her. She spent her short life battling terrible and painful illness, but faced her seemingly cruel fate with grace and calm. Her life was certainly not what she would have chosen for herself. She would have preferred to be an anonymous peasant who got married and had children and died of old age in the village. Instead, she became wildly famous, vilified, questioned and harassed. She went to the convent because she could not stay in the secular world after Our Lady appeared to her. While in the convent, her Mother Superior treated her with relentless disdain until the day Bernadette died.

And yet, Bernadette was not unhappy or bitter. Whatever she wasn't given in life, she realized the enormous gift that had been bestowed on her. A message from Heaven.

Secondly: Faith Shaken. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her famous "dark night of the soul". She's not the only holy person who struggled with their faith. The term "dark night of the soul" is a very old one that speaks to the turmoil that seizes so many people who spend their lives trying to do God's binding, only to have life spit right in their faces again and again.

As a young nun, Mother Teresa had a visit from Jesus, who told her to go do what she did with the rest of her life. But after Jesus told her what He wanted, He never spoke to Her again. Now, where one might think, "Well, once Jesus actually speaks to you, He shouldn't have to tell you twice, or come back and cheerlead your efforts."

And that's true. In fact, that is the reason that the visionaries of Medjugorje have recently been suppressed. They had daily visits from Mary all these years, and the local bishop finally just said something to the effect of, "What's the matter with Mary that she can't get her point across?"

What, indeed.

But for Mother Teresa, if wasn't just that Jesus no longer spoke to her. She felt as though He was gone altogether. She eventually came to terms with what this meant to her when her confessor pointed out that this was her opportunity to join with Jesus' suffering, specifically "the Agony in the Garden". She was happy with that, although it took her most of her career before she ever arrived at that thinking.

And yet, she did it anyway. She lived a beautiful and significant life in this world.

And finally, St. Joseph, the buyer and seller of real estate is good for buying and selling business. He is that patron saint of workers, after all.

But on your prayer hats, readers! This family needs you!

Candy Bowl

2011-10-31T13:41:00.000-07:00

Before the onslaught of princesses and zombies I thought we could clear up a few questions and comments from readers we've had, rather like a bowl of candy left out for the taking:

Animals do not have immortal souls. They are, however, a sign of God's pure love for us. So why would that be taken away? We know that there will be plants in heaven, they don't have immortal souls either, so why not animals? And specifically, why not the pets we have loved? It is, of course, all speculation, but will not the Judge of all the world do right?

An eternity in Heaven isn't enough of a sign of God's pure love for you?

I have addressed this question before and for me, the answer is two part.
1. If your dog gets to go to Heaven, then every animal that every lived should go, too. Every rhinoceros and opossum, every iguana and crocodile, every toad, frog, elephant and hyena. Your beloved pet is not any different from any other non-immortal soul creatures. It isn't fair that just because he had a bowl with his name on it, he gets to go and they do not.

2. That means your animal has to be a dog or a cat for all eternity. That's not a nice thing to wish for your beloved pet. In fact, its seems a little mean to me.

Moving along, a reader gave me an award! But had my name wrong. That's okay, but the actual Sister Mary Margaret took notice:

@NC Sue - It's Sister Mary MARTHA, not Sister Mary Margaret!

I know, I know, what's the difference? Well, for starters... I am me and she is she. Also, she is a Lakers fan and I am a Spurs fan, so we probably can't even be friends during certain times of the year! (J/K, SMM!)

Prayers,
Sister Mary Margaret

Actually, I am not a Lakers fan. My last post was Chicago, which is where I picked up my love of basketball, back in the heyday of the Bulls. The Lakers were our arch rivals and I never got over it. After I came here (and I have been here longer than I've been anywhere!), I tried to get on board with the locals, but I just can't. I don't know why. There is no logical explanation.

I truly enjoy basketball and I appreciate a team that functions as a team. So that was the first strike against the Lakers. They've gotten better at it, but I can't seem to be impressed. I will admit that when I watch them play I find myself rooting for whoever it is they are playing against, even if I don't like the other team or don't know a thing about the other team.

And I love the Spurs! I also love the Boston Celtics, the Bulls, and although I've never been big Mavs fans, I was thrilled for their win this year.

Sister, Can you tell me who is the patron or patronness of those with Alzheimer's or dementia? Is it the same as patron of those with special needs or mental retardation? Some searching has led to St Dympha, but I thought that mental illness was different? I did search through a couple of years of older posts, to no avail. Thank you and keep up your great ministry.

I'm with you on this. For one thing, poor St. Dymphna gets inundated with all things 'crazy' from actual mental illness to sleepwalking. It was her father who was unbalanced. She had this in common with St. Barbara.

A better saint for people who are mentally unbalanced would be St. John of God, who actually was mentally unbalanced himself and was able to find stability through God. But no one thinks of him that way.

Except me.

But for Alzheimer's, I would have to recommend St. Anthony. We all know that he is the patron saint of finding lost objects, or lost anything, so that would be enough right there. And most people think that the reason St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost items is because of an incident with a book.

But I disagree that this is the reason! The truth is that St. Anthony had an amazing memory himself. He was a fabulous speaker. Why? Because he was one of those people who could remember everything he ever read. He had what people call a "photographic memory". Which is why he remembers what you did with your car keys.

Cat Heaven

2011-10-28T14:01:00.000-07:00

We have had many arguments here on the blog about whether or not animals go to Heaven. I am a staunch believer that they do not, as they do not have mortal souls. My old nuns taught me that as a child. It made sense to me then and it makes sense to me now.

But should I turn out to be wrong and Fluffy and Rex get to Heaven, it might sound something like this

Jesus Appears

2011-10-26T12:35:00.000-07:00

We've discussed the use of sacramentals and objects that remind us to keep the faith quite often. There are those that we love.

Those that we don't love.

and many that are just a matter of taste.

I don't much care for football Jesus and Jesus sports statues. Many people do. It bothers me, for one thing, that He's taking sides. And if you think this is okay, how about when we add the Crown of Thorns?

That said, I would always rather err on the side of "whatever floats your boat" when it comes to what calls to people. Don't fix it if it isn't broken. If it's working for you, go with it.

But Banana Jesus?

That is a black spot on a banana, not a message from God. No.

And Peanut Butter and Banana Jesus? No. No. No. Somebody call Elvis.

In keeping with our sense of compassion, I can only hope this person lovingly fashioned this food sculpture and thought of the words of Our Savior while doing so. A fleeting hope. Because next, you have to either eat that Jesus, or throw Him away. Neither option works for me.

I suppose when the banana darkens in the air, it will actually look more like Jesus than Vincent Van Gogh or Kirk Douglas playing Vincent Van Gogh in "Lust for Life".

Meaty Monday

2011-10-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

Since it's Halloween season....

...which, by the way, used to be just Halloween, but now, since the decorations go on sale in August, the houses are decorated by Oct. 1st and the parties started last weekend, we can safely call Halloween a season....

...I thought it might be okay to quote someone who would cause your hair to stand on end. Proof that no matter what our differences, we can find some sort of common ground. I read an essay the other day by Penn Jillette, the bombastic magician and atheist, and found myself in total agreement with his premise, if not his conclusions. I'll stand by with a blow dryer and a brush to help you look normal again after you read it. I don't think it will make you feel happy.

"Christian used to be a throwaway word. People didn't used to use it much. People didn't start self-labeling or getting labeled Christian until the last part of the 20th century. Before that, you might identify as a Baptist, or a Southern Baptist or a Methodist. But there wasn't one identifier that put you in a fold with all the other believers.

In fact, every religious cult was afraid of every other religious cult. The bugnutty Pentecostals didn't want the bugnutty Methodists to have too much power. There was no "Christian nation" for the simple reason that the Christians were afraid of one another. America was founded on Christians not trusting each other, and they sometimes seemed more willing to reach out to the godless than to someone from another sect." Penn Jillette

He was making a political point about the power of the religious right in the op-ed piece and the rest of the article will cause your standing up hair to burst into flame, so I won't bother you with a link. (Los Angeles Time Op Ed, Oct. 2, 2011, for the thick skinned) But that notion that America was founded on Christians not trusting each other rang like church bells to me. Why did the Puritans come here? Because they were booted out of England by other Christians, that's why. What happened to them formed the basis of our separation of church and state, which was an amazingly good idea coming from people who thought anyone not white wasn't really exactly all the way human and who thought that dunking people who might be a witch to see whether or not they floated or drowned and if they drowned they weren't a witch and if they didn't drown they were burned at the stake.

This is all in reference to our recent discussion about the mistaken notion that various religious orders are separate sects, a fantastic notion in the true meaning of the word fantastic. (–adjective

1. conceived or appearing as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination; odd and remarkable; bizarre; grotesque.

2. fanciful or capricious, as persons or their ideas or actions.

3. imaginary or groundless in not being based on reality; foolish or irrational.)From a reader:

So now I'm really confused. If Jesuit's, Dominican's and Franciscan's all have the same basic believes of the Catholic Church, which is basically to lead us to a closer union with Jesus Christ. What is the difference of being Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, or Catholic, in leading us to a closer union to Jesus Christ? Oh, I forgot about the Pope.

First of all, the various religious orders do not have the same "basic beliefs" of the Catholic Church, they have ALL of the beliefs of the Catholic Church, or they are not an order, they are suppressed or ex-communicated.

So, yes, we can start with the Pope. That's not a little thing. Jesus put someone in charge, so for His followers to not believe that there's someone in charge because Martin Luther and King Henry the VIII didn't like that idea is a big problem.

But the various Christian denominations have a lot of other deal breakers going for them, important things like what they believe about the Holy Trinity, whether or not Jesus'
Presence in the Eucharist is real or symbolic, works vs. faith (which, as far as I can tell, totally confuses everyone, especially the 'faith only' crowd). The list is unbelievably long.

So long, that I can tell you I once met a former preacher who told me about his life in the tents. He was a tent preacher and he was from a family of tent preachers. He was a believer, too, not one of these phony Margo Gortner money grabbers. He told me about a huge donnybrook between two Christian sects in the same town. One believed that you should always dip the bread in the wine and the other believed that you should have them separately. There was a huge fight that left all sides not on speaking terms. I guess a bunch of them were comprised of those people who don't want the food on their plates to touch.

Let me tell you the rest of his story, too, as it is pertinent to our discussion today. He traveled the country preaching in tents for most of his life until one day he arrived in Florida. He was admonished by the Christians there for allowing black people into the tent and when he scoffed at this ridiculous notion, his tent was burned to the ground. He quit preaching and applied his skills of persuasion to selling vacuum cleaners door to door. True story!

So you can see why Mr. Jillette's thoughts struck me as they did. It's why I wrote this, so long ago.

On the Gridiron

2011-10-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

Hi Sister,

I was in a discussion recently with a Protestant friend who insists that the Catholic Church is just as fractured as the Protestant groups. I was sort of taken aback and had to dig deep to figure out what he was saying since the only real "fracture" I could think of was the Great Schism. Apparently he was referring to the differences in the Catholic orders, like the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Jesuits, and so on. He has been taught that the different orders are like the fractured Protestant faiths, the Methodists, the Lutherans, the Baptists, and so on. How can I explain the difference to him? How can I show him that the Jesuits are just as Catholic as the Benedictines, that they have a different name but they're all part of the same team? Do you have a good analogy? I don't know what to say to him. Thank you for your help!

Well the poor thing. There really is no end of misinformation available for the separated brethren.

Although, the Great Schism isn't the only "fracture" in our illustrious Church history. Anti Popes spring to mind. At one point in time, we had two Popes, one in Italy and one in France. Since neither of them would step down, a third Pope stepped up and then he wouldn't leave either. Don't worry, it all worked out. As you can tell, there is only one Pope now.

I think your analogy of all playing for the same team is brilliant! Pick a sport he likes. Football? They're all playing football. Some are centers, some are place kickers, some are quarterbacks.

Some orders teach, some spend all their time praying for you, some nurse. They all play for that one team and they all play the same game, but their job in that game differs.

I would call myself a running back. My job is to get the ball further down the field and, if possible, score a goal. What is the goal? Getting my soul and yours to Heaven.

The people who populate different orders within the Catholic Church have one thing in common, they believe every single thing the Catholic Church teaches. The Catholic Church will not give its blessing to groups who believe otherwise. If a group believes something different, they will not be allowed to be an order. And if the group somehow comes to some wacky conclusions after they have formed and been approved, they get the boot, orderwise. It's really not possible to have an order that is not fully in harmony with the teachings of the Catholic Church. If they are, they are no longer a Catholic order.

I hope this helps. I don't watch football.

Tweet Tweet

2011-10-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

The weather here suddenly turned blazing hot, and if that wasn't enough fodder for me to offer up to the Poor Souls in Purgatory, I have a splitting headache, no doubt caused by the change in barometric pressure. Or something.

I have some important Halloween related statements to make, but Heaven only knows what babble might occur should I try to address our readers devilish concerns today.

I thought I'd drop by just the same with a moment's refreshing pause.

Eenie, Meenie, Miney, No.

2011-10-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

I realize that stores put out their Halloween decorations on July 5th, but is it just me, or does everyone already have their lawn done this year? Our neighbors have a whole graveyard out already, which has caused the annual march to our front door to kick in.

Years have passed since 'the incident', so I'm going back to JoAnn's today. Thanks in advance for your prayers. Which brings us to today's question:
Great post Sister! I have a question in regards to your older post called "Every Waiter Has a Screenplay, But God Doesn't" when you talked about free will in regards to God's will. I really do believe that God gives us options on how to complete His ultimate Will for us, but is one option better than the others? What if all the options seem equally as good, how does one decide? Thanks for your input!:)

You're going to have to put your big girl dress on and choose. You don't have to choose in a vacuum. You can discuss your options with people you trust, your confessor, people who know something about you.

What not to do: discuss it with anyone who will listen. People have their own agenda and their own baggage and may have had a bad experience with something that might be a great choice for you. I had a woman tell me to avoid going to visit the LaBrea Tar Pits because it was a depressing awful place where little robins still get mercilessly stuck in pools of tar. I loved it there. No birds were stuck in anything and the hologram of the the only human being ever found stuck in the tar (an ice age woman who was a murder victim) is fascinating. When people ask me what touristy thing to do in Los Angeles, I always send them to the Pits.

Weigh your options. Think carefully about what happens next when you make your choice. I was recently chatting with a gentleman who is active in AA. He told me that one of the things that helped him stay sober was a trick he learned from his meetings, to play the scenario all the way out. "What happens when I have just one drink? To begin with, I ruin five years of sober living. And then, I think I can 'handle it' so I drink more, and I start missing work and missing important things in life like weddings and birthdays and then I get arrested for drunk driving and lose my job and maybe go to jail...." He was very specific. Be specific.

What not to do: waffle back and forth until you've forgotten your own name.

And the most important step, pray. This is where the rubber meets the road, prayerwise. So many people pray as though God is a some sort of big box store that has everything you need in stock, if only He'll just send the stock boy to the stock room and drag it out for you.

Prayer is a communication with God for the strength and grace you need to make the right choices to stay in harmony with His Will.

What not to do: listen to dreams and voices, especially if you have a fever of over 101.
Also, no coin tossing, Tarot card consultation or tea leaves.

Occupy Compassion

2011-10-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

Good Day, Sister!
I was wondering who would be considered the patron Saint of protesters?

Thank-you!

Off hand, I'd have to say you'd want to look for a patron of what you're protesting about.

FOR EXAMPLE

St. Francis was not a logger or a protester, but there he is, right in the thick of it. And really, isn't that what makes a saint? Someone who was willing to put himself in the thick of it? Maxillian Kolbe springs to mind.

For our current rebellion, I'd recommend St. Joseph, the patron saint of workers.

My favorite saintly protester is St. Lawrence, who was told that he had three days to turn over all the treasures of the Church to the government. He spent three days giving away everything he could as fast as he could and showed up on day three with every pauper, wino and leper he could find. "These are the treasuries of the Church."

That went over like a lead balloon. But, way to take a stand St. Lawrence!

Since these protesters are camping out, you could go with one of the many, many hermit saints who took to the desert and lived off of ants and leaves, if they ate anything at all. That's a lot harder than ducking into a Starbucks when you're parched.

St. Conundrum

2011-10-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Sister,

I am also a Protestant that thinks your reasoning regarding the saints make sense. But today you discouraged people to ask for the prayers of someone that has not been canonised.

If I have understood correctly there has to be two miracles connected to the intervention of a certain (dead) person for that person to be canonised.

How do the intervention take place, and how do you know that this "saint to be" is in it, if you are not asking for that persons prayers before they are canonised?

You got us. We're crazy and we make up the rules as we go along. Sometimes, we just run around with our hair on fire.

No, we don't. But I can certainly understand your confusion. You make an excellent point and I'll try to explain it to you as best I can.

Deep breath.

We didn't always canonize saints. It went like this: You lived a holy life, honored and noticed while you were alive for your wonderful holiness and service to God and man. When you died, we wept and wailed and hung around your tomb. We think you're the bees knees and we just know you had to have gone right to Heaven, you holy thing you, and we prayed for your intercession. After all, you just got there, and everyone will be welcoming you. What better time to ask you to ask for a favor. Or a thousand.

For hundreds of years, that's how saints were made. By popular demand. By a cult growing up around the saint. Put your hair out. All cults aren't bad. The Boy Scouts of America spring to mind.

But a few folks slipped in there that, well, let's just say we realized that everything that a group of people thinks is wonderful isn't actually wonderful. A lot of people watch "The Real Housewives of Where Ever". That doesn't make it wonderful, or even a good idea.

The Catholic Church is not a democracy, after all.

It's not just the miracles that make a saint. How do you become a saint?

1. Die. Although we do talk about people being saints while they are alive, technically a saint resides in Heaven. Period. Everyone who is dead and in Heaven is a saint.

2. You will have had to have lived an exemplary life. You will have had to have demonstrated heroic virtue. That's why, even if you weren't so hot most of your life, if you die a martyr, you are automatically a saint. The Church will have to decide if that actually happened, though.

3. You will be studied and dissected. You actually will be dissected a bit. We have to make sure you existed, so we will dig you up and take a few bones for relics. Then we'll put you back, often in someplace nicer.

4. Someone will have to ask the Church to consider doing all of this. Someone will have to petition the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to open a case for you.

5. After they do that, we can ask for intercessory miracles. That's just to prove you made it to Heaven. First you have to be declared "Venerable", meaning, worthy of veneration. After you have one miracle, you will declared "Blessed" and after two, you're in.

Obviously, you were in anyhow, but we're not going let people run around praying for the intercession of dogs and empty coffins. You may notice over there on the sidebar, there's a book called "My Cousin the Saint". It's written by a guy whose cousin is a saint. The cousin was recently canonized. It's a great read and explains the entire process in a very personal way.

The Church Triumphant With Ear Trumpets

2011-09-27T21:47:00.000-07:00

I believe that if I have one cross to bear in life, made doubly burdensome by my own devotion and interest in our beloved saints, it's this endless argument:

I can only speak for myself, but as a protestant, the reason I reject asking those in heaven to pray for me (and certainly reject praying TO them) is that I believe there is one mediator between God and Man: Jesus (1 Tim 2:5). Further, God does not answer prayers based on WHO is praying/asking, but based on praying according to HIS WILL. I believe we can confidently come before God with our prayers, knowing that HE hears us (1 John 5:14-15).

Further, I do not find any biblical reference suggesting we ask saints/those in heaven to pray for us. Are there? All biblical examples I have of people "speaking" to those who have died are in the context of witchcraft/sorcery/divination/necromancy.(1 Sam. 28, Lev. 20:27, Deut. 18:10-13)

While I believe those in heaven are aware of what is happening on Earth, I see no biblical evidence that they can necessarily "hear" us. While they are in heaven, they are still finite beings, not omniscient.

I do think there is a general misunderstanding of Catholic doctrines in the protestant church, and certainly, among my Catholic friends, I have heard them say they are "praying TO St. XYZ" or praying a novena TO so-and-so, which clearly doesn't help the understanding of the actual Church doctrine.

My face is permanently blue trying to explain. I will never give up. I will eventually expire, and when I do, I will resemble Papa Smurf.

So let's take your objection a step at a time. "There is but one mediator between God and man: Jesus." Only God can answer our prayers. Jesus is God. Did that slip your mind? When you pray to Jesus you are praying to God.

But going along with your premise, do you never ask people around you to pray for you? I can't believe that you don't. You are asking them to pray to Jesus, God, the Holy Trinity, for you.

In the Catholic Church we believe that those who are with Jesus in Heaven are just as active in their prayers for us as is your or daughter or butcher or preacher or whoever it is that you are asking to pray for you.

That's why all the prayers asking for intercession end in "Pray for us". I can't picture a Heaven where the Church Triumphant (which is what we call those people who have "arrived") are just running around, jumping and skipping and sticking their fingers in their ears and humming. God cares about us here on Earth. Why would anyone think that people who are now with God don't care. After all, one makes it to Heaven by being in harmony with God. And they are no longer finite beings, but have life everlasting. Hooray for them! I hope they are praying for me. I can't think of anyone better to ask to pray for me, than people who have won the battle that I am still fighting, so to speak.

I generally don't get into "Bible fights". But here are a bunch of Bible moments in which the early church talks about praying for each other.

“I beg you brothers, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of the Spirit, join me in the struggle by your prayers to God on my behalf” (Romans 15:30). “But you must help us with your prayers, so that on our behalf God may be thanked for the gift granted us through the prayers of so many” (2 Corinthians 1:11). Other examples of intercessory prayer for other Christians may be found in Ephesians 6:18-20; Philippians 1:19; Colossians 4:24; 1 Thessalonians 5:25; 2 Thessalonians 1:11; 3:1-2; Philemon 22; James 5:13-16, and 1 John 5:16.

We believe that the saints in Heaven are as much a part of our Church as the guy in the pew next to us. But....this is a very important "but" about your Bible quotes....we strongly discourage the Church Militant (the arm of the Church here on earth) from asking for the intercession of the Church Triumphant unless they know for a fact that the person they are asking to pray for them is in Heaven. Which is why we canonize saints. Heavenly proof of Heavenly Triumph. We don't want you asking Uncle Bob to pray for you. We love Uncle Bob, but only God knows what happened to him. We hope the best. But the devil is tricky. You may think it's Uncle Bob, but it's really Uncle BeelzeBob.

We do pay attention to Scripture.

I certainly hear many, many Catholics saying they are praying TO a saint. They actually may misunderstand the doctrine themselves. But most of them do understand. It's just Catholic shorthand for what's really going on. Like when you say you're going to "make dinner", when actually, you have to boil water, wash meat, cut up vegetables and try not to burn yourself, put on the pasta, put the meat in the oven, throw the vegetables in the microwave.....

Our real difference seems to lie only in the disagreement of what goes on in Heaven. I believe that those who in harmony with God, care for us as He does.

Zinga Go the Strings of My Heart

2011-09-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I said my rosary opinion would elicit the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the peanut gallery and it did. It did. (See the comments section of my last post.)

In a nutshell, my general thought was that if you don't have time to say the rosary, just say some other prayer, or prayers. For example, instead of driving along trying to say ten "Hail Mary's" (and keep count with your hands on the wheel) while also trying to meditate on seeing the life of Jesus through His Mother's eyes ( a tall order), why not just say a bunch of "Hail Mary's" while you drive?

I did mention, however, that I would never discourage anyone from praying just about any way they like. Because that would be crazy, coming from a person who strongly advocates the use of sacramentals. The whole point of sacramentals is to keep God on your mind as much as possible, even if it's just on a seldom noticed chain around your neck.

So, of course, go for it.

I was amazed at the number of people who pray the rosary while cleaning the house. Not that I would be surprised that anyone would do that. There isn't a nun in the world that doesn't fill otherwise mindless activity with prayer. (Not rosaries, though. FYI)

It was the picture in my mind of "Mary's Army".

And in answer to this question:

Sister, I'm intrigued by the photo of the cupcake rosary you posted here. Seems like it would be fun to do at my son's (Catholic) school...I think. Anything to keep the kids interested in the faith, right? Or is it a bit blasphemous to eat an image of the rosary? I've heard of chocolate rosaries, too. What do you and your readers think?

Anything? No, not anything. But once you've made a rosary out of cupcakes, you'd better eat it, or you're being wasteful. What part of Mary's life shall we contemplate while we savor? Or...contemplate first, eat after.....

Meanwhile, some names just pop out at us, peaking our curiosity.

I'd like to hear what you know about St. Kunegunda. I have a relative with this name. The relative I know for sure with this name wasn't born on the feast day that I located for St. Kunegunda (June 24). As you can guess, she was a Polish lady. But her birthday was in March. I'm curious about the name because it's unusual even in my very Polish family. I had never even heard of the name until I "dug up" Kunegunda with my genealogical research.

I am happy to help! I might drive and do the laundry while I tell you about St. Kundegunda!

St. Kundegunda is doubly royal. She was one of those royal types who married a prince and when he ascended to the throne of Princedom she became a Princess. But the royal types in her family (who were also earthly Queens and Princesses) were also saints. She is the niece of St. Elizabeth of Hungary and the great niece of St. Hedwig of Hungary. Her sister, Margaret, is also better known as St. Margaret of Hungary.

Kundegunda married Boleslav V of Poland, also known as Boleslav the Chaste. Good news for her! She had wanted to remain chaste anyhow! When he moved on to his heavenly reward, she left her cushy government job and gave everything to the poor, locking herself away for a life of contemplative prayer, which I'm sure included praying whilst washing and starching her habit.

You know, back in the day, they had these big vats of starch on the stove and they would dip the parts of their habits that needed stiffening in the vats over and over again.

In any case, she had founded a convent of Poor Clares before she left off being a Princess and that's where she spent her remaining days. She is the patron saint of Poland and Lithuania.

But I think she should be the patron saint of pretty, pretty Princesses who hold tea parties with their dolls, as they could aspire to spend their lives the way good Princesses should, by devoting themselves to the poor and lepers and staying chaste and eventually becoming a nun.

She can also be the patron saint of people who struggle with patience, as she died in 1292, and waited to be beatified for 400 years and then waited to be canonized for another 309 years.

But perhaps the best patronage for her would be for those people who are saddled with some crazy name that no one can remember or spell right, as she is known as Kinga, Cundegunda, Kunigunda, Cundgundes, Kioga and Zinga.

Mysteries of the Rosary

2011-09-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

Sister,
Can you help me? I hear a lot of people talk about praying one decade of the rosary at a time. For example, they may pray a decade on the way to take the kids to school in the morning. When this is practiced, is it proper to say all the opening and closing prayers on each end of the one decade? The creed, the Our Father, three Hail Mary's, the Glory Be, the decade, then the Glory Be, Hail Holy Queen, etc...? Or is there some other way to do it?

I have the same question about saying the entire rosary, broken up during the day. If someone were to pray the joyful mysteries in the morning, the sorrowful in the afternoon, and the glorious in the evening, would they say all the other prayers every time?

I know I left out the luminous mysteries. For devotions that originated before the luminous mysteries and that require reciting all 15 decades daily, what is to be done about the luminous mysteries? Are they ignored? Are they required?

Please help me figure out all these specifics!

Thanks

What?

As if saying the rosary and all it entails and what day of the week and what time of year one says which group of mysteries isn't enough to digest. Not to mention that the whole reason we have broken down into which group of mysteries to say on what day of the week plus at what time of year is because we realize you don't have time to say a whole rosary (all decades, all mysteries, all the time) every day. Now people are breaking it down even further into a decade at a time. While driving?

Really?

If you want to drive around saying a meditative prayer on your own, that's fine. For my sake, please wait until after you drop off the kids. The idea of not really having your mind on driving with the kids in the car is a little disconcerting. On the other hand, once you drop them off and go into your mediation, there are other people's kids in other people's cars to consider.

As long as we're making up new ways to say the rosary, I'd say the first part of the rosary and one decade, and then a decade at a time, if I had to make something up about a driving rosary. Must be a very short drive.

I hope these people talking about saying a rosary one decade at a time are not the same ones that are complaining about when we say "the" in the Mass or if certain prayers are before or after the end of Mass.

I know I'm going to hear it from the peanut gallery, since I really never want to discourage people from praying any which way. Truly, I don't.

But do we have to do everything in sound bites? Are we really that busy? Mary weeps.

The point of saying a rosary is not saying a rosary. The point of the rosary is prayer. Prayer is a petition to God. (It isn't always, there are prayers of thanks, for example. But are you paying attention to the "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners...." part? That's a petition.) It just seems to me that if we're going to use Mary's special prayer to petition God, we might want to consider putting aside some time and effort and not try to finish off a decade while you're double parked.

If you're breaking up the entire rosary throughout the day, broken up by mysteries, I can go with that. At least you're in the full mediation process and you're going the extra distance beyond what the Church asks in rosary saying. Of course, you say all the prayers. Why wouldn't you say all the prayers? This makes no sense to me. You are, after all, talking about a prayer during which we say the Hail Mary over 50 times. But you want to leave out some "Glory Be"s? Why? I'm confused by the confusion.

As for the Luminous Mysteries, they are neither ignored nor required. But I would put it to you that when it comes to prayer the old adage "less is more" does not apply.

Again, we love for you to pray, anyway you can, anytime you can. But why not just do that, and save for rosary for the time it actually takes to say it without driving your car up a pole.

Lightning Round

2011-09-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

Ever notice that there are things certain people always get wrong? My mother, for example, has called the over the counter medication Imodium AD, "Ammonia AD" for as long as I can remember. She even had my father doing it.

Then their are the people who can't get they're "theres" straight.

So I was not surprised to get this note in the comment section the other day.

Sister,
AAAAAAARGGGHHH!!!! Are you SURE you're a schoolteacher?

Lightning is a powerful discharge of static electricity, usually associated with storms. The word does NOT contain the letter 'e'.

Lightening is the act of reducing a load.

Happily for this reader and me, frustration (as opposed to harbored anger) is not a sin, or we would both be in the soup.

Yes, I am a teacher. I guess this is on my "always wrong about" list. I also almost always misspell "argument". It seems to me that it should have another "e" in there (their, they're), since it's about when one argues. Spell check stops me in my tracks.

If only my " always wrong about" list stopped at spelling.

At least I know not to mix Imodium and bleach. I hope this lightnings your load.

The Mass is Ended, But Don't Leave Yet

2011-09-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hi Sister
I recently moved from California to Washington DC, where after daily mass, the Prayer to St Michael is recited. How come? It was never done at either parish I attended out west, nor was it done when I formerly attended this same parish in DC back in the 80s and 90s.
Thanks Sister, I really enjoy your blog.

Interesting question. So often I find that parishioners are disgruntled at prayers added to the end of the Mass. I know this for a fact, because... they don't stay for them.

I also know a number of priests who are disgruntled at prayers added to the end of Mass because they are sticklers for the proper way to say Mass, and technically, the Mass is not supposed to have prayers tacked on to the end of it, the rule since 1964.

But then, one might argue (and believe me, I've listened to them argue), that these prayers haven't been added to the end of the Mass. They are said after the Mass has ended, as in, "the Mass is ended, go in peace. And now, the Prayer to St. Michael."

Sigh.

I just....are extra prayers ever a bad thing? I'm so grateful that it's my job to make sure the coffee pot gets emptied or some such busy thing I can busy myself with. I can spend the time banging around in the kitchen saying the prayer to St. Michael 40 some odd times, one for each of the people who ditched the prayer after the Mass.

So, what's the beef?

The Prayer to St. Michael is only one prayer in a group of prayers that were tacked on to the end of the Mass because the Church was in danger from the state, which had taken over the Vatican. I think...something like that...the Church was in danger, that's the main thing to remember. And the Pope asked everyone to add these prayers. They are called the Leonine prayers. (Can you guess which Pope asked for them?) They consist of 3 Hail Mary's, the Hail Holy Queen, a prayer for the liberty and exaltation of the Church, the St. Michael Prayer, and 3 prayers to the Sacred Heart to have mercy on us. And if you want to split hairs, the Leonine Prayers did not originally include the St. Michael Prayer. That was added by Pope Leo XIII.

Wonder how many people fled to the parking lot before that was over with?

Then, at Vatican II, the Church wanted to make sure the Mass was "pure", simple, back to basics. So the Leonine prayers went away.

So it would appear that various parishes across the land feel the need to call on St. Michael's intercession to protect the Church in troubled times once again. I can see where Washington DC would be one of those places.

It's not rocket science.

Is it okay? Yes. It's actually after the Mass. Do you have to do it? No. Is everyone doing it? No. Am I for it? I can't see where extra prayers are ever a bad thing.

But I have to put the coffee on.

The St. Michael Prayer
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray:
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.

A Bolt From the Blue

2011-09-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

We've bid Sister Julie a fond farewell, but she may return. We've heard whispers and discussion. Our rosaries are clanking with excitement at the prospect!

Dear Sister Mary Martha,
Is there a patron saint of electrical linemen, the men who climb poles and put their hands on electrical wires? I looked around on the internet, but did not find anything.
I really enjoy your explainations with examples, such as the free will entry. Thanks!

There is not a designated saint for electrical linemen. But there are patron saints for people who climb tall poles and patron saints to help you not get electrocuted. Those would work, don't you think?

First, we have our old buddy, St. Simeon Stylites, who not only climbed onto a tall pole and sat there for 37 years (his entire life after he scaled the pole), he actually started a whole group of pole sitters. So, have your choice of St. Simeon Stylites the Elder or the Younger. And Daniel the pole sitter.

They did all kinds of things up on their poles. St. Alypius, stood up for more than 53 years, until his feet gave out. Then her lay on one side for the rest of his life, fourteen years. All on top of his pole. They preached. They argued theology by shouting at each other.

And then, for protection from lightening (which is electricity) we have several choices. St. Barbara might be just the ticket for you. For one thing, she lived in a tall tower, locked away like Rapunzel by her father, who was trying to keep the boys away from her. St. Barbara had a devotion to the Faith and her tower had two windows in it. She had a third window installed, to represent the Holy Trinity. Her father was away when she called the contractors, and when he returned and saw the window, he became convinced that she had it put in there to let the boys in. He tried to kill her, but she escaped.

But not for long. He tracked her down and killed her. He was instantly struck down by a bolt of lightening. She is the patron saint against lightening. But she is also the patron saint of people who put together those fireworks displays and firefighters. We like to think of her on the Fourth of July. I think she might be the patron saint of Cuba, too. Sister Julie would know! Meanwhile...there's Google....

But if that doesn't make you happy, you could go with St. Erasmus, more popularly known as St. Elmo. As in St. Elmo's fire, which is some sort of lightening at sea. He is the patron saint of lightening because of two lightening incidents. The first: He was preaching and a lightening bolt struck the ground beside him. Great way to punctuate a speech, back in the days before Power Point.
The second: His martyr's death was particularly long and gruesome. Don't Google it while you're eating. Before he went the way of Mel Gibson in "Brave Heart", he had every other kind of torture applied to him, and in the middle of it all, lightening struck everyone around him and killed them all.

Wouldn't you stop if that happened while you were torturing somebody? I would have thought that would have caused him to be left alone.

But a martyr's death is a glorious thing. So be it.

This also happened to St. Catherine of Alexandria, by the way, but she is better known as the patron saint of people who make wheels. I would have said "wheelwrights' but no one knows what that means anymore. Her list of patronages is really long and includes spinners and spinsters, librarians and scholars, but no lightening.

Last Anointing of the Sick Rites

2011-09-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

We have a nun overlap here, as Sister St. Aloysius is back, but Sister Julie has not gone. And look! I have time on my hands!

Sister Mary Martha,
My Mom died in a nursing home last November. She was unconscious and her heart just stopped after 3 days. Our family called the priest who ministered the Last Rites. She could not receive the eucharist as she just looked like she was sleeping. He was very joyful and told us Mom would go straight to heaven when she dies. We prayed the rosary many times as a family for her and said our goodbyes. She was unable to have her last confession and was somewhat confused the last year, but attended weekly mass. I thought she would still make a stop in Purgatory. I am not taking chances and have masses for her. She suffered much in her life and I would love to think Father was correct, but it sounds too easy the way he told us. What do you think? Thank you.

God Bless her!

Yep! The priest is right. He wasn't just trying to feed you some feel good claptrap about a happy place in Heaven. Extreme Unction, Last Rites, Anointing of the Sick, Sacrament of the Sick, whatever we're calling it these days, forgives all sin and removes all temporal punishment, which is why you definitely want one of these.

There is a teeny bit of wiggle room. She has been forgiven. But in order to get absolution one has to be truly sorry for their sins. So, there is a chance that the absolution wasn't absolute.

But she did get absolution from the priest, which reconciles her with God. We can't say with one hundred per cent certainty that there isn't a stop in Purgatory. But we can be pretty confident she's in Heaven. If I had to put money on it, I'd say "Straight to Heaven."

Up she went!

Don't worry about the prayers for the dead, they'll make their way to someone who needs them, like throwing fish back into the pond when you catch a few over the limit.

How blessed that she had a peaceful passing with a priest present. No wonder he was in a good mood. It must feel great to swing open the gates of Heaven for people.

Heaven Help Us List of Saints

2011-09-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

I've been asked on many occasion of a list of saints that are available in the shop. So here they are. These are the saints we have available in medal form, which are hand painted. I can put any saint at all on a glass pendant. We have a few new saints that will be listed in the next couple of days. Here's the big parade in Heaven!

A                                      B                                          C                                          D
Agatha                  Barbara                              Catherine LaBorre                      Damien of Molokai
Agnes                   Benedict                             Catherine of Sienna                    Dismas
Albert the Great    Bernard                              Cecelia                                        Dominic
Alphonsus             Bernardette                        Charles Borromeo                      Dominic Savio
Anastasia              Bernadine                           Christopher                                Dymphna
Andrew Avelino   Blaise                                  Cipriano
Ann                                                                   Clare
Anthony                                                           Cosmos and Damien
Appollonia                                                       Curs de Ars

E                                     F                                          G                                           H
Edward                       Faustina                          Gabriel                                    Helen
Elias                           Florian                             Gabriel the Archangel            Hugh
Elizabeth of Hungary Frances Cabrini              Gemma
Elizabeth Seton          Francis Assisi                  Genesius
Emergency Pass         Francis Xavier                 George
Expeditus                                                           Gerard
                                                                           Gregory Sierra
                                                                           Guardian Angel

I                                       J                                          K                                           L
Ignatius Loyola          James                               Kateri                                      Lawrence

Infant of Prague         Joan of Arc                                                                     Lazarus
Isidore                        Johannes Berchanns                                                        Lucy
                                   John                                                                                 Luke
                                   John the Baptist                                                               Louis
   John Bosco
                                   John of God
   John Neuman
                                   Josemaria Escriva
                                   Joseph
                                   Jude

M                                         N                                                      O                                 P
Maria Goretti            Nicholas                                                                              Patrick
Mark                         Nino de Atocha                                                                   Paul
Martha                                                                                                                   Paulina
Martin de Cabelleros                                                                                            Peregrine
Martin de Porres                                                                                                   Peter
Matt Talbot                                                                                                           Philomena
Maximillian Kolbe                                                                                               Poor Souls of Purgatory
                                                                                                                              Pope John Paul II

R                                          S                                                        T                               V
Raphael                       Scholastica                                    Teresa of Avila    Valentine
Raymond                     Sebastian                                       Teresa of Calcutta       Vincent de Paul
Rita                             Stanislaus                                       Theresa the Little Flower
Rock                           Stephen                                           Thomas Aquinas
Rosalia                                                                                Thomas More
Rose of Lima

The Virgin Mary                              Miscellaneous                                Saints in Glass
Assumption                                    Good Shepherd                        (we can make any saint on a glass
Fatima                                            Holy Family                               pendant. These are some we've
Guadalupe                                      Baby Jesus                                  made.)
Holy Hill    First Communion                             Bibianna
La Salette                                                                                                 Gertrude of Nevilles
Lourdes                                                                                                    Christina the Astonishing
Medugorje                                                                                                Julian of Norwich
Madonna of the Streets                                                                            Jerome
Miraculous Medal                                                                                    Ivo
Olives                                                                                                       Macarius
Perpetual Help                                                                                          Swithin
Virgin de Cobre                                                                                        Wilgefortis

Every Waiter Has a Screenplay, But God Doesn't

2011-09-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

Sister Mary Martha, my husband has a question. He says, "My brothers and I were raised Catholic and one is now a professed atheist. I pray for his conversion everyday. We were talking yesterday about the subject of free will. I told him that God created us with free will and intellect. However, he states that we do not have a free will because if God is all knowing and all powerful,then God knows what we are going to do before we do it and therefore there is no free will because everything is laid out in front of him already. I wasn't sure how to respond except to tell him that we have free will and that God knows our choices. Can you help me with a better response?

I guess "It's a Sacred Mystery" won't cut it. That was always what the old nuns said, back in the day, when they either didn't know the answer or they knew that, since you were seven years old, you wouldn't understand the answer just yet (if ever).

And your answer: that is the answer.

But you might try something along the lines of, "Your kid hates green beans and you know that if you put green beans in front of him he'll make a face. Does that mean you are in control of his face? No, it means you know what's going to happen."

Knowledge is not control.

But here's an element that you folks might not have discussed. God isn't sitting around with a day planner, thinking, "It's Tuesday September 6th, 2011. Genevieve will turn right instead of left and miss the curb and sprain her ankle. Bob will kill at his presentation. Charlotte will spend almost an hour looking for her glasses, which are on her head."

God isn't like us. We live inside Time. We can only see the world as the past and now, and we can't see the future at all, even into the next millisecond.

God lives outside of Time. He sees everything all at once. He just sees what you're going to do. He doesn't make you do it. Seeing the future does not equal controlling the future.

And underneath this argument is the elephant in the room. What about "God's Plan"? If God has a plan for you and He knows what's going to happen, then what difference does it make what you 'choose', you're going to be following His plan, even if it means you'll end up in Hell.

That's really the crux of the argument isn't it?

Which is another huge misunderstanding of what "God's Plan" is. God's Plan is that you find your way to His Love to be with Him in eternity. How you do that is totally up to you.

One last thought about Free Will and God's Plan: Human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, so one of our intrinsic attributes is that we always choose good.

I know that sounds crazy, but it's absolutely true. The problem is what we think might be good. Hitler didn't kill millions of Jews because he thought that was a really bad thing to do. He thought that was a really good thing to do. He was far from alone in this thinking. Saints wore hair shirts and make shift thorn crowns because they thought is was a good and helpful thing to do.

Sorry to put Hitler and saints together in the same paragraph.

My point is our choices are based on what we perceive to be the best thing to do, which is sometimes totally wrong headed. God's plan is that our lives somehow manage to head in His direction. He can see you coming.

Strange Looks and No Comments

2011-09-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

We had a little earthquake today. As one of the eighth grade boys said, "We eat earthquakes for lunch." Yes, we do.

Dear Sister Mary Martha,

My protestant friend invited me to join her bible study group. I've been going for several months now and I enjoy the bible study and the prayers. However, anytime time I mention anything remotely Catholic they all go quiet and wait for me to finish and then have no comment. Until last week when I mentioned the Immaculate Conception of Mary and one woman sat bolt upright and said "I've never read that story!" The group leader told her it wasn't in the bible and that is was Catholic Doctrine. I didn't know how to defend this (I do know now as I came home and studied!). Should I keep going to this study? I've been praying about God's will. Am I sinning by going? During this same evening someone talked about praying to God about getting a parking space. I told her we catholics have a saint for that!
I was met with strange looks and no comments.

We do have a saint for that! St. Boniface. And if you want to be able to drive your car into that parking space, St. Frances Cabrini, the patron saint of keeping your old car in running condition.

But the separated brethren just have a nonsensical problem with asking saints to pray for us. That's because they believe that we pray to saints. If that was true, they would be correct. But it isn't true, so they are not.

When we ask saints for help, the help we are requesting is their prayers in our behalf. As far as I know, the separated brethren, like Catholics, run around asking people to pray for them on a daily basis. But saints, people who exhibited heroic virtue, are off limits? To me, that merits a strange look.

I understand that you might not have wanted to pipe up with "What're you lookin' at? Don't you ask people to pray for you all the time? I ask you and people who are sitting around with Jesus in Heaven to pray for me. I'm smart that way. So just real those eyeballs back in."

But, maybe at some point, you might want to raise your little paddy paw and say, "You know the other day when I mentioned having a saint for parking? You don't think I was actually praying to someone, right? Because when we ask a saint for help with anything, we're just asking them to pray for us, the same way I would ask you to pray for me. And I might actually say to you, 'pray I get a parking spot.'"

Which brings me to your actual question: is it a sin to go to this class?

No.

It could be. Some would argue that maybe it's not a good idea, as it could sway or confuse you. That's a valid argument.

I feel that it could actually enhance your Catholic faith. I find that when I look into the belief systems and roots of many denominations, I merely breath a sigh of relief. Not only do we belong to the One True Church, we can play cards, drink and dance. Our dolls can have faces and our clothes can have zippers. We have an army of people in Heaven praying for us along with an army of people on earth who are joining them. And we have a really pretty mom.

Should you find yourself being swayed away from the Catholic Church and you stay in the class, that would be a sin because you are intentionally doing something that is undermining your faith. But it sounds to me that the opposite is true. Now you know all about the Immaculate Conception, for example.

Light Dusting

2011-08-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

I hope I don't disappear on you again, but school actually starts at the end of the week. I'm hoping to power through questions and comments, so let me know if I accidentally skipped you. Some one wrote in the comments section "Andrew of Scot---where do I leave a question?" I don't know if they meant to try and ask a question about St. Andrew the Scot or they were using his name in a sort of "Jumpin' Jehosaphat!" sort of way. In any case, the comments section is the place to leave questions.

Meanwhile a comment from a reader about the "Superheroes".

Ahhh - but there is the anomaly of not letting one's Right hand know what the Left hand is doing.....drawing attention to one's good deeds by Dressing Up somehow diminishes the effect.
In my opinion.

Dressing up how?

While I can see your point, I can't really agree. Perhaps if I hadn't had to listen to so many comments about what nuns wear or do not wear over the years....

The whole habit /clergywear argument goes something like this:
"Nuns and priests should always be identifiable, like policeman and ....well, policemen."

Now, I can understand that sentiment. So the same thing can be said of these do-gooders. Their outlandish outfits identify them as people who are there to help. Like policemen. Or nuns. The whole reason the Pope wears that tall hat is so that you can pick him out of a crowd.

My beef with the need of some folks to see habits and collars is that it seems like when they say they want to be able to spot the avowed spouses of the Church, what they mean is that they don't want to be caught misbehaving, or swearing or being unkind and gossipy because they didn't realize the guy they were having a cocktail with was a priest or the lady they cut in front of to steal a parking space was a nun.

To them I say, "Behave yourself!" That way you won't have a problem no matter what anyone around you is wearing. This includes the beach.

Is St. Catherine of Siena or St. Catherine of Sweden the patroness of preventing miscarriages? and why? I've seen both, and while it's possible they both are, the names make me think someone mixed it up somewhere.

No, it is both of them, but I don't know why St. Catherine of Sweden wound up in that category. I've actually been on the case trying to find out and I've come up empty. That means the reason may well be that a prevention of a miscarriage has been attributed to each her, ala St. Gerard.

St. Gerard is the patron saint of childbirth because he forgot his hanky. He left it at someone's house and then, later, while a young woman was having a very difficult and dangerous labor, somebody in the house remembered Gerard's hanky was there and gave it to the young woman to hold. Mother and baby did fine, as they say.

So, I'm thinking something along those lines must have gone of with Swedish Catherine. Unless perhaps her own birth was difficult. She was the middle child of eight, the daughter of St. Bridget of Sweden. Which brings us to Siena. Her patronage against miscarriage is a no-brainer.

St. Catherine of Siena's mother had had 22 children (half of them had died) when she gave birth to twins in while in her forties. Catherine's twin didn't live long, but Catherine became one of only three women "Doctors of the Church".

The Order of the Eastern No-No

2011-08-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

Since things are so quiet around here, I have time to stir up some trouble with this question from a reader:

Here's my question....At what time in history did Catholics decide to condemn Masonry or The Order of the Eastern Star? Are they the same? HELP!

I bought some religious items from an Estate Sale. The estate lot had a membership to the Fresno Chapter of The order of The Eastern Star. The membership holder was a Nun. I have her holy cards, letters she has written with her signature, friends memorial cards( including a few priests) and other devotional items.

I wasn't really surprised by her membership, however others looked at it has the devil walked into the room! How can a Nun be in the Eastern Star? Can Catholics be a Mason? I'm not armed with such knowledge can you help me?

When did the Church first warn about the Masons? 1738 AD. You can read all about it here. But if you are allergic to things that are dry as dust, scroll to the bottom, where you'll find what Pope Clement had to say back then.

The last time I discussed the Catholic Church's teachings about the Free Masons, some Free Masons hair went on fire. Be sure and read the comments section, unless you can't stand the smell of burning hair. It's like an exploded blow dryer in there. I'll let you wade through this. I'll have some coffee while you read.

So that's that.

The Order of the Eastern Star is a women's auxiliary group for the Masons. When it started way back when, you had to be related to a Mason to be eligible. You had to be a daughter, wife, widow, niece...something familial...to a Mason. The rules have relaxed (no doubt to increase dues revenue) to include women who have some sort of relationship with a Mason. I'm not sure how close the relationship has to be. Or how you would prove that relationship. Maybe you have to show your Facebook page.

I don't know what was going on with that nun. She shouldn't have been in the Order of the Eastern Star, the Church expressly forbids it. Maybe her poor misguided father was a Mason, and she was somehow 'gifted' with a membership and just stuck the membership certificate in a drawer where it stayed until she died. Let's hope that was the case.

I'm not inclined to behave as though Masons and their families are devils with horns, unless one is willing to judge that such notables as Clara Barton and that lady that wrote "The Little House on the Prairie" (both members of the Eastern Star) were Satan worshippers. But the Church has asked us not to be Masons.

So that's that. If it all makes you smolder, try this.

Superheroes

2011-08-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

Oh, these lazy days of summer! Thank you for you're continued patience with my absenteeism. Sister Julianne is such a whiz with everything that it's done before I think about doing it. And if I mention something I might want to get done, she runs off and does it. She is one of those people who loves to fix things for you. Can't find your glasses? She's already searching for them! Need to trim the morning glories off the power lines before they crawl up and choke off the power to the whole neighborhood? She found the clippers, the green can, the ladder, the garden gloves....and she's halfway up the ladder while you're still changing shoes. At the end of the week, I go back to school, just to dust and arrange and collate. I have a feeling that when I get there, she will have arisen in the middle of the night and done it all and I'll just skip through the hallways all day.

So I had some 'leisure time'. I usually read. Or visit with you. But I watched a documentary that someone recommended. For the longest time, while watching it, I was sorry I took it on.

According to this film, there are people who have decided to be Superheroes. They make up some kind of silly costume and stand out on their own street corner, or a corner somewhere in their town and wait for some crime to come by and then they try to stop it. They fashion weapons. They make masks. They practice fighting by sparring with other pretend superheroes.

And, I have to say, the poor things, if we were to call people names, they are the king nerds of nerdery. They are Nerdtastic.

One fellow had made himself some sort of flash ring. It looked like a "magic ring". It had a little lever or knob on the side and when he flipped it, flame shot out. Or, it flashed so it looked like flame was shooting out. "It's a distraction," he said, sounding very important. I'm not sure what he planned to do with the criminal once he was distracted. Magic Ring was practically an old man.

I don't think they really fought much crime. One fellow kept his secret identity as as superhero from his wife. When he finally told her what he was doing with his evenings, she did not laugh in his face or leave him, like any sane person would. She became a superhero, too. That's devotion.

Or Nerdtastic.

So it was a little sad watching a group of them stand on street corners at night and skateboard around talking to each other on walkie talkies. A drunk driver side swiped a car and the skateboarder "called it in" to the corner stander. "Get the license plate!" the skate boarder yelled into the walkie talkie. "What? Can you repeat that? What?" the corner girl answered. Drunk driver, gone.

They did eventually stop the man, took his keys away and promised to mail them back to him the next day. Shazam! Take that, crime!

But near the end of the movie, most of these people were shown doing something else. The man and his wife spend their own money to make a homeless person kit. They take really large size zip lock bags and go to the Rite Aid and buy lip balm and toothpaste and toilet paper--a list of things they think one person would need to live on the street for one day--and they bag it up. A roll of toilet paper, a lip balm, a bottle of water. Each bag is worth about $20. They make as many as they can muster and pass them out among the homeless.

Many of them carry back packs filled with candy and little toys and nutrition bars and pass them out to people they encounter that need a lift. They help old drug addicts in wheel chairs get across busy intersections. They ask people where they stay at night, and arrange places to meet to bring them things they need. They hold hands and take names. At Christmas, they collect enormous amounts of clothing and toys and bring them to homeless shelters.

Today, we call these types nerds. But from the time of Christ on, we have called them saints. Oddly dressed people with funny ideas about doing what they can to help humanity in need, wherever need exists. People who really don't care what other people think about their odd mission in life or their funny hat.

They urge everyone to join them, to pick up the slack, but you and I know that very few people have the nerve to be Nerdtastic.

Is It Still Summer?

2011-08-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Where have I been? Just a minute ago it was two weeks ago! Sister St. Aloysius is off on her yearly Think Tank sabbatical. I thought I was going to have to go it alone with Sister Mary Fiacre, but it's really a two man job. A two nun job. A two person job. We have it down to a science, getting her in and out of her wheelchair, and in and out of bed, the medication schedule, the TV shows that seem to entertain her. Trying to explain our inanely complex routine to an 'outsider' is almost embarrassing.

"You put the empty bread bag under her left foot and then pull her up and spin her around into the wheelchair."

"Bread bag?"

"Yes. The bread bag under her foot lets her foot spin like a ballerina. Otherwise she could snap her ankle."

The bread bag was the brain child of Sister St. Aloysius. Genuis. No wonder they have her at the Think Tank every year.

"If you cut the cookie into pieces and stick a piece between her fingers, she will eat it herself automatically. But you have to pry her fingers apart."

"Pry her fingers apart?"

"Yes. with your own fingers. You won't need any tools or a crowbar or anything."

Around this time, some people flee, with their hair on fire.

I had lined up several of the church ladies to drop in from time to time to pick up the slack. Or the bread bags. We were good to go.

You may remember that last year...was it last year? I lose track. Anyhow, we had St. Nicolas during Think Tank season. I didn't think I'd get any help from the powers that be this year. It's harder and harder to find a spare nun anyplace. So you can imagine my surprise, just after returning from a whirlwind trip to the airport after we realized we misread the ticket and the time was 12 noon, not 12 midnight (poor Sister St. Aloysius thought she'd be sleeping through a redeye and didn't bring a thing to read, this is where a rosary is so handy!), to find a certain Sister Julianna parked on the door step with her little black bag.

I thought she was sitting down when I saw her, but she was standing up. She's two feet tall! No, she isn't. But she is very tiny. I feel like a Yeti standing next to her. She's Cuban.

Actually, she isn't really. We talk that way here in America. "I'm Irish!"

No, you aren't. You may be of Irish decent. But you are not Irish. If you go to Ireland and tell them you're Irish, they'll shake their heads and say, "You're an American." And they'd be right.

Sister Julianna is of Cuban descent. She does wonders with a sweet garlic sauce and those little bitty bananas. Who knew garlic and bananas would be a good thing. Although they did not agree with Sister Mary Fiacre at all. So we won't be having them again. I'll offer up my suffering for the Poor Souls in Purgatory.

So it's going very well! Her hair didn't go on fire when I showed her 'the routine' and she can pivot a person on a bread bag with the best of them.

We're back in business!

Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus

2011-07-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

Sister, if you ever get caught up with our questions (Joke) I have another project for you. I'd like to learn about the saints that are named in some Masses- Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus... maybe you could do them in order and have a book?!

It would be a very, very short book. I think I can tell you everything I know about all four of them right now, so don't get too comfortable. You'll have to jump up and find something else to do in just a moment.

Linus, Cletus and Clement are the first three Popes after St. Peter, but not necessarily in that order. It could be Cletus, Linus, Clement. Or maybe even Linus, Clement Cletus...anyhow. They are the first three Popes after St. Peter. I know I said that already, I'm padding.

There is a Sixtus I who is Pope in the very early church ( he was number 7), but at Mass we are referring to Sixtus II. I have a hunch about why we name the first three Popes after Peter and then skip about 200 years to St. Sixtus II.

Every single Pope up to and including Sixtus II was a martyr. St. Clement had an anchor tied around his neck. He was tossed into the sea. We don't know what happened to Linus, only that he is listed as a martyr.

You have to hand it to all those individuals who didn't say, "No, thanks" to wearing the Papal crown considering that the job always included martyrdom as a retirement plan.

St. Sixtus II was dragged out with six other people and beheaded. When he realized what was going to happen, he made sure he went first, in the hope that maybe the Emperor Valerian would be happy with a headless Pope and stop there. It didn't work.

That's him on the left saying, "Excuse me, I'd like to go first." Emperor Valerian came to a bad end himself when the Emperor of Persia did Valerian in.

After that the death of St. Sixtus II, the persecution of Christians was officially ended by the Emperor of Rome. Hallelujah.

I believe that by listing the first three and then jumping to the last martyr Pope, we are honoring all those Popes who suffered for the Faith in between. Twenty four Popes went straight to Heaven, one after another, after another.

Really makes you pause, doesn't it about all the silly "war on Christmas" type thinking, doesn't it?

Belly Achers

2011-07-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

Thank the Dear Lord I get sick once in a while. I'm perfectly healthy at the moment and I don't get sick very often. Thank the Dear Lord for that, too. Because sometimes people who don't get sick at all just have a very difficult time understanding the suffering of others.

Although it was no fun at the time, I once had a strangulated hernia. As a result, I have a keen understanding of acute abdominal pain and so I sympathize with those who suffer from diverticulitis and I have some understanding of labor pains that would otherwise elude me. I certainly feel the pain of our dear readers:

Dear Sister, I am a celiac Catholic. While I love God, and the Faith, and communing with Him as much as I can, I am often terrified by Communion. My issue is that I am not able to tolerate any gluten. I have done research, looked at documents regarding diet, and read numerous articles. Apparently to be "Copacetic" (?) the wafers must contain .10% (one-tenth of one percent) gluten. While many can handle the low gluten wafers (Made by Benedictine sisters) I get very ill on those as well. I am able to have the wine and celebrate with that. When I tried to commune with the low-g wafer, I became very ill-I am- the one who vomited up the Lord, due to gluten. Since my family already has a tough time understanding the diet, I got a lot of weird looks, and still do... did I need to go to confession as I did? My priest reassured me that he knew it was a medical issue and that he didn't think he needed to exorcise me. (odd sense of humor.) But while I love God, it hurts that I cannot commune totally, and that I got ill on His body. Have you dealt with this or any other dietary issues?

Poor thing. I'm sorry your family doesn't understand what your body can not tolerate. You would think it would be very clear and apparent, given the results you have from ingesting gluten. In the future, should you ingest gluten, try to get yourself into the back seat of one of their cars, or seated on their brand new couch. That might help them in their understanding.

Not only have I dealt with this before, I believe someone tried to sue the Church or called the ACLU or something like that about the rule the Church has about what can and cannot be a host for the Body of Christ. To no avail.

I personally don't have any dietary issues other than making the mistake of eating curry twice in a row. I can eat curry. I can't eat it again after I eat it. No curry leftovers for me.

But more and more people do have gluten issues and, until someone invents a 'you can now eat gluten' pill, I'm afraid this is your cross to bear. At least you can still partake of the Blood of Christ, which is just as good as the wafer. Just because the Church got into a habit of only offering a Host and not the Wine, doesn't mean one is more important or better than the other. What if, all these years, people only got the wine and not the bread, except once in a while the Host was included? We wouldn't be having this conversation.

Except for this poor gentleman. He would still be having this conversation:

The celiac issue is a huge topic for our family. We really hope and pray one day our dad will convert to Catholicism (mom raised us Catholic). BUT he is afflicted with both severe celiac disease AND alcoholism. Ingesting wheat and/or wine pose difficulties that seem insurmountable for my dad. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Except he isn't having this conversation, as he is not Catholic. One day we hope he has this problem. What a thing to say!

St. Sadie Hawkins

2011-07-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

Sister, is there a patron saint for getting a boyfriend?

A saint? Where have you been?

Let's start with St Agnes. I'll give you a moment to peruse the material. Some people took exception with all the machinations involved in calling upon her. They are the same people who refuse to bury St. Joseph in the front yard to sell their houses. To them I say the same thing you should say to the man that got away, "It's your loss."

I can understand how you may have missed this post way back in the archives. Perhaps while you were patiently waiting for me to answer, you read about St. Catherine of Alexandria and the increasing desperate prayers that may be said for her intercession as a Heavenly matchmaker.

I would like to throw in St. Cecilia as a good pick. First of all, St. Cecilia, who is that patron saint of music and musicians, had absolutely not one thing to do with music or musicians. Her patronage of the melodically inclined comes from a line in a poem about her that mentions her singing in Heaven. Or playing the organ? I'll have to look that up. In any case, she is often depicted in art, in particularly on holy cards, seated at the organ with the angels as a chorus.

The reason I think she would be a good pick is twofold. Virgin martyrs are on the short list for saints to whom we pray for mates and St. Cecila was a virgin martyr. But St. Cecilia, virgin that she was, had a boyfriend! Many of the virgin martyrs ended up being martyrs because they had spurned some potential boyfriend who then had the poor girl arrested out of spite. Things went south from there, as in the case of St. Lucy. St. Cecilia, on the other hand, had a lovely young man to whom she was engaged. When she told him she wanted to become a Christian and remain chaste, even if they were married, he said, "Fine with me."

Now that is some excellent boyfriend material. You and St. Cecilia! A match made in Heaven!

An Answer 60 Years Long

2011-07-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

Everyone in Heaven is a saint. Does that mean everyone who goes to purgatory stays there till judgement day, or that they are all saints by the time they make it to Heaven? We pray for people in purgatory to make it to Heaven a little quicker so I presume they're not all necessarily there until judgement day, or are they?

Are you new to our little convent on the internet? Because this is one of those questions the old nuns would have answered with, "It's a Sacred Mystery." That's Catholic Code for "Just let it go."

There actually is an answer to your question. There is no actual time in Purgatory. Purgatory is outside of time. It will end when time ends. So it's rather useless for us to sit around and count the days and hours a person is in Purgatory, although we do pray for them to get out sooner, rather than later and we hope our prayers are answered.

However, there are a number of saints who had souls from Purgatory visit them and talk about time. The conclusion: one hour of Purgatory feels like 60 years on earth. Time doesn't fly when you're not having fun.

I try not to think about it. Not Purgatory, since I am utterly certain I will be spending some time there, unless the world ends before I do, but the whole time factor. For example, what does 60 years feel like exactly? How many times have we older folks said, "What? That was last year? I thought it was about ten years ago!" Or, "What? that was ten years ago? I thought it was last year!" The idea that a soul could come back from Purgatory to tell about it and be able to pinpoint "60 years"....okay.

I see no point in talking about a place outside of time in terms of time. What happens there will be between you and God (and Mary when she comes to give you a drink of water).

The one thing we do know for certain, is that people do not go there and stay there until Judgement Day. Once you pay your dues and cleanse your soul completely, you're out and on your way. We never say a person who is a saint went straight to Heaven (although they may have), even a canonized saint. That's not the criteria for sainthood or canonization.

The confusion seems to me to lie in the difference between a saint (anyone who is in Heaven) and a canonized saint (someone who the Church has declared is definitely in Heaven through proof of miracles). Your dear Aunt Millie may indeed be a saint in Heaven. Let's hope so. But we don't know that for sure, so she isn't canonized.

The only person I have ever heard of as being sentenced to Purgatory until Judgement Day was Pontius Pilate. I was taught that by the old nuns in grade school. But they made that up, poor things. According to them, he went to Purgatory (as opposed to Hell) because he was sorry for his sin.

To which I would have to interject, "That sin." He may have had a list the length of the
Amazon of other horrific sins for which he felt no remorse whatsoever and therefore went to Hell. He certainly didn't believe Jesus was his Lord and Savior.

But I believed the "Pontius Pilate in Purgatory" story for quite some time.

The truth is the Church never says anyone is in Heaven, Hell or Purgatory for sure except for canonized saints. We have a lot of thoughts on the matter of non matter.

Holy Moses!

2011-07-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

Sister- Are there any known-for-sure saints from before the time of Christ?

Yes. Everybody.

Well, not everybody. But certainly Abraham and Isaac, Elijah and Noah, Ruth and that guy who married her and his mom.

Before Jesus died on the cross for our sins, the gates of Heaven were closed. So all the good people that died before Calvary went to what we call "the Limbo of the Fathers". That must have been a pretty cheery and interesting place. Moses and Aaron, David and Solomon! What a crew!

Then, when Jesus was dead for three days...a day and a half, really...where was He? Opening the Gates of Heaven and the Gates of the Limbo of the Fathers. I figure He had to have opened the Gates of Heaven first or there would have been a bottleneck. Maybe St. Michael the Archangel did it for Him. Since Michael is an angel and not a person, he would have already been living in Heaven with Gabriel, whenever Gabriel was there and not here delivering news and messages.

We mention this incident when we say the "Apostle's Creed". That's what we mean in that part where we say, "He descended into Hell." Technically, we should say, "He descended into the Limbo of the Fathers." I guess they thought that was too wordy.

Everyone who is dead and in Heaven is a saint, and certainly people like Moses and Abraham and David and Noah and his wife are there.

St. Joseph died before Jesus died on the Cross, too. And so did St. John the Baptist. They had a short stay in the Limbo of the Fathers. I guess they aren't really 'before the time of Christ', but they died before the Gates of Heaven were open.

I suppose what you actually want to know is, why aren't these people called "saints" and why aren't they canonized? That's because we didn't start canonizing people until much later in the history of the Church. St. Peter and the Apostles were never canonized. We've only been doing that since the tenth century. Before that saints were named saints by popular demand, and while this seems lovely, too many cookamonga stories were circulating about too many people, some of whom never even existed. So the Church tightened the rules about sainthood and demanded proof. That's why the first thing we do with anyone who is considered for sainthood is dig them up.

I'm not sure why we don't bother to call them saints. Habit, I think. Like Mary. Once in a while we call her St. Mary, but not so much, really. She's just Mary. Like Moses.

Virgin Martyrs Leap Into Heaven

2011-07-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

Since it's a quiet, breezy summer around here, I've been slowly chipping away at our long queue of questions. Thanks for your patience if you've asked one! I do feel a little like I'm keeping you on the phone listening to sad music.

Yesterday I had to call the DWP, the Department of Water and Power, about our electricity. Happily, I wasn't on hold all that long, but the "on hold" music they play is eight sad notes (I could count them) played over and over again on some type of electric (what else?) keyboard. Having that stuck in my head, still today, is a good opportunity to release souls from Purgatory. I think that might be the music that is played in Purgatory, in fact.

In any case, today's question is a follow up from a post a little while back.

How can suicide be a mortal sin when you cannot be mentally well (in your right mind) when you take your own life?

And how is flinging yourself into flames or the ocean or whatever a protection of your moral purity or chastity? If a woman is raped -- what these saints purportedly were facing was forced sexual acts -- she does not become "impure." She has been violated and has in no way sinned of her own volition.

I imagine you're not very old. The world is not quite so black and white. Let's start with your first statement that you cannot be in your right mind, ever, if you take your own life.

Yes, you can. Try old age for a while, and get back to me. Despair does not equal insanity. Despair is also a mortal sin, yet it is a very sane response to some very desperate situations. Some people are in unbearable physical pain.

I would agree with you that possibly the majority of people who take their own lives are not in their right minds. But there are perfectly sane people who think they can just cash it in whenever they want to.

But the spirit of your question is certainly vaild, as there was a time when the Church blanketly stated that suicide was a mortal sin, period. In fact, people who committed suicide were not allowed to have a funeral Mass. Their bodies were not allowed in the church. As if a suicide isn't hard enough on a family. That has changed, precisely because the Church understands that the person may not have been in their right mind, or may have realized their sin and asked for forgiveness even as they kicked the stool out from under them.

And there was time in history, in fact up until recently, when even the law would question if a woman "brought it on herself" if she was raped. That really hasn't gone away entirely yet. Take the case of that nasty old French man in that hotel in New York. Now we're hearing that the victim was a liar and a drug runner or some such thing. She may be that and more. But she also still could have been raped by the nasty old French man and deserves her day in court, which may never come because of her 'criminal' past.

You are talking about a time when women were covered head to toe. A time where a young woman's purity was treasured in a way that we no longer seem to understand.

These women valued their vow of chastity above their very lives. They believed God agreed with them in this endeavor, since the vow was made to God. On top of that, the society in which they lived did believe that if they were raped they would be impure. We don't think that way today, but people did think that way back then. Not all so long ago, really.

Have you ever heard of The Magdelene Sisters? This was a convent (in Ireland, now the subject of much scrutiny, but also here in the US) that took in wayward girls and put them to good honest work in the convent laundry, which was a commercial enterprise. And while that sounds like a good idea, and often did work out well for the girls, what was considered "wayward" included rape victims and girls who were flirting with boys. I personally know a girl who was sent to the Magdelenes because she accepted a boy's invitation to a movie. The boy went on with his life with no interruption or reprimand. She spent three years doing laundry. Not in 400AD. Not in 1620AD. This was going on into the 1950's.

Times change. They don't always change for the better. But 'the good old days' aren't always so hot.

As Reliable as the Weatherman

2011-07-12T15:20:00.000-07:00

Sister,
I am going to be entering university in the fall as a meteorology student. Could you please tell me who the patron saint of meteorology and weather is? Also, because some meteorologists work at news stations, do you know who the patron saint of news is?
Thank you,
A loyal reader of your blog

Goodness! A loyal reader! How lovely.

There are several weather saints. St. Swithin, for rain, springs to mind. For rain, as in Pro rain. St. Swithin loved rain. He loved the sound of rain on the roof.

But for you and your meteorology interests, I have to recommend St. Scholastica. She was the beloved twin sister of St. Benedict. St. Benedict is such a big deal saint, having pretty much invented the Monastic Rule. His sister was a nun. They were both major smarty-pantses.

She had a group of nuns, and he had the largest monastery in the world. Every so often the twins would get together in a house just outside St. Benedict's monastery (because she couldn't go in) and spend hours in prayer and discussion. On one such occasion, as the hour grew late, St. Benedict said he'd better get going. She was having a fabulous time discussing things with him and begged him to stay longer. He refused.

St. Scholastica bowed her head for a moment and a giant wild storm suddenly rose up. St. Benedict said to her, "What did you do!?" And she replied, "I asked you to stay and you wouldn't listen, so I asked God if you could stay and He did listen. Try to leave now." I'm sure she also smirked and chuckled, because, who wouldn't after that?

St. Benedict was forced to stay overnight. Three days later he saw the soul of his sister rise to Heaven in the form of a white dove.

There's a weather related saint for you!

The three official patron saints of journalists are St. Francis de Sales, St. Maximillian Kolbe, and St. Paul. St. Francis de Sales was very learned, a Doctor of the Church and spread the Gospel as thoroughly as he could. St. Maximillian Kolbe actually was a journalist, of a sort, because he realized the the newly popular radio could be used for the good of the Church. I believe he had a radio show. And St. Paul, well, who spread more news than him? Even now, he's still at it. So I'd go with St. Max or St. Paul for your news station.