It's the Heat

I thought I should probably write a little something today, but my mind is a blank. As I sat down to try anyhow, I said a little prayer that maybe someone had left a question and I could just answer it and feel like I've accomplished my goal. I opened up the blog and there was this:

Thank you so much for your post answering my question sister. Next question if you are up for it :) What did Jesus mean when he said: "Ask and you shall receive." Was he talking about spiritual gifts?

Ironic.

Yes, he was talking about spiritual gifts.

Pray to the Baby Jesus

I have fallen behind in question answering. If I've missed your question please repost it in the comments section and I'll take another run at it.

Meanwhile someone at some point asked about how to say the "Infant of Prague Rosary".  There really isn't an Infant of Prague Rosary that of which I am aware. There is an Infant of Prague Chaplet.

The word chaplet means "a crown or a wreath". And that's why we call these circular sets of beads chaplets, because our prayers form our Heavenly crown and bring greater glory to the devotions (Sacred Heart, Immaculate Heart, for example) and saints for which they are said.

The rosary is a chaplet. But a chaplet is not a rosary. Once we get into chaplet territory all bets are off. Beads.  A set of beads, prayers said in a certain order, a certain number of them, a set of colors that symbolize something (purity, the Precious Blood, etc.).  There are as many chaplets as there are orders, needs for prayer and saints. The chaplet for St. Therese the Little Flower has 24 beads, the number of years she lived. The Blessed Sacrament chaplet has 33 beads, the number of years Jesus lived on earth.

The beads are there to keep count. The colors are there to focus your prayer. The rest is up to you.

There is an Infant of Prague chaplet. It has 15 beads and an Infant of Prague medallion at one end. You say three Our Fathers in honor of the Holy Family and 12 Hail Marys  in honor of the 12 years of Jesus' infancy and childhood. Starting on the medallion you say this prayer:

"Divine Infant Jesus,
I adore Thy Cross
and I accept all the cross
Thou wilt be pleased to send me.
Adorable Trinity,
I offer Thee
for the glory of Thy Holy Name of God,
all the adorations of the Sacred Heart
of the Holy Infant Jesus."

And then before each Our Father and each Hail Mary you say this prayer:

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us."

And then when you're done you say this:
"Holy Infant Jesus, help and protect us."

So, it's not rocket science.

A whole separate discussion could be had on devotion to the infant Jesus, which is also not rocket science. I think it's brilliant, whoever came up with the Infant of Prague chaplet, to have added before each prayer, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us."

That's the essence of devotion to the infant/child Jesus: that He was a human being who was born and played with blocks and ate His peas. There are whole orders who do nothing but meditate on points like this. So it certainly doesn't hurt the rest of us to contemplate what that really means to us, for us. If you really pay attention to the words of the prayers in this chaplet it's all there for you.

The Other Archangels

Perhaps not related but sister could you explain Saint Selaphiel, patron saint of prayer? I found out about this archangel today and would like to know if he features in the Catholic tradition?

Funny you should mention "I found out about this today".  I have had a similar archangel experience. I would wish us both luck in unraveling who reveres who and who suppressed who, but Catholics eschew luck. Eschew is the perfect word for what we, as Catholics, do about luck.

My angel appeared in the catalog where we find the medals for our shop. There in the Catholic catalog was Zadkiel, the archangel of mercy and forgiveness. This tickled me no end. Who doesn't need more mercy and forgiveness?  Keep in mind that not only are these angels the patrons of whatever, their job description is to bring human beings to God through that patronage. So not only do need more mercy and more forgiveness, I need to be more merciful and more forgiving.

All covered by Zadkiel. He'll be in the shop soon!

But hold on...the Catholic church really only names three archangels: Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. The rest were suppressed at the Council of Nicaea, as far as I can find out at least.

But if you go digging a little you'll find the names of the seven archangels. We all agree there are seven archangels.  But there are several traditions of who they are and what there names are.  We'll all cry if I try to name them all within the traditions in which they are found.There is the Catholic Tradition, The Eastern Orthodox Tradition, the Coptic Orthodox Tradition and the Judaic Tradition.  The Episcopals (and their granddaddies the Anglicans) like adding Uriel.  Suffice to say that we all agree on Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.  Next is Uriel, who also appears in all the traditions but is skipped more or less by the Catholic Tradition.  The names of the seven are differ from each other in each tradition.

So your angel is from the Eastern Orthodox church, named as one of the seven archangels who stand before God. He is the patron saint of prayer and is almost always depicted with his hands folded and his head bowed. His name means "Prayer of God".  He stands bowed before God in prayer and he is the primary teacher of prayer.

But, just like there are various names of angels on various names of angels lists, Selaphiel has spelling variations and one of those spellings means "God's Command".  He is the angel that will lead you before God to be judged.

According to tradition.

My new pal Zadkiel is the angel who stopped the hand of Abraham when Abraham was following God's order to sacrifice Isaac.

Or it was Selaphiel. Depends on your tradition.

It's a little hard to have a tradition if you're new to it. Sort of flies in the face of the meaning of tradition.

Oh well.

We know there are seven archangels so I see no problem with Selaphiel, Zadkiel, Jehudiel, Barachiel, Jeremiel, Jophiel, Chamuel,, Simiel, Oriphiel, Ananiel... there are more.  And there are alternate spellings for everyone. Wheeeeeee!

Great Minds and Little People

I am remiss in getting to some questions. Since the school year is about to start, I thought this one would be a good choice:

Sister, thank you for your blog and your time. I love reading,learning and being scolded at times :) I have a toddler whose speech is very delayed for unknown reasons. He is perfectly fine other than that. Do you have any patron saint suggestions?

St. Albert Einstien.  Okay....Albert Einstein is not a saint. Or, maybe he is in Heaven, which means he is a saint. He has certainly never been canonized. But that great genius of our time did not speak until he was four years old. That is some delay. I guess he had a lot to think about. He was also considered sloppy and lazy as a boy.  How that made him different from other children, I'm not sure.

But we do have the perfect patron saint for you, of course. St. Thomas Aquinas, also one of the great minds of his time. Of all time, really, as a lot of what we believe as Catholics was due to his massive intellect.

Our favorite topic of late, for example: angels.  If you click on this link you will be AMAZED at all the things you forgot to think about while you were thinking about angels.  When were angels created? Before the earth and us or after? Is there a hierarchy of fallen angels as there is a hierarchy of angels in Heaven? Can angels act directly on human will? Do some angels just hang around in Heaven? How can angels have bodies and no bodies at the same time?

What St. Thomas Aquinas has to say about guardian angels alone is worth scrolling down for a read. One of his many monikers is "The Angelic Doctor". 

At his canonization hearing, the Devil's Advocate pointed out that there had been no miracles to prove that Thomas was in Heaven and the response was, in essence, his thoughts were miraculous enough.

But St. Thomas Aquinas was an inarticulate oaf as a youth, so much so that he was dubbed "The Dumb Ox" by his teachers. "Dumb" because he never talked and "ox" because he was huge. One of those things never changed.


And, by the way, here's a good read for the Separated Brethren on the relationship of an angel who spoke to Mary.  Keep in mind that angels are much smarter than we are.

Angels Not Among Us

In regard to the mystery priest not being a mystery or an angel:

Now, now. I know that you know that people are not angels; not even dead people are angels. Angels are angels, dead people in heaven are saints, and live people on Earth are the body of Christ, the children of God, His hands and feet.

I'm so glad you pointed this out! It's everything I can do sometimes, just to contain myself when some sweet little old lady or some sad young man shakes their head mournfully and says about the recently departed, "Well, now they're an angel in Heaven."  I have clamp my mouth shut so as not to pipe, "No, he isn't. If he made it to Heaven, let's hope, he's a saint. Angels are a separate entity created by God. People can never be angels."  If my mouth started to say this, my finger would also wag. It's directly connected to my mouth.


Worst case scenario, I would be escorted out, still eating some brie on a cracker. Best case scenario, I would be judged as appallingly inconsiderate.

I am not, as a rule, inconsiderate.  I am a stickler for details and facts, though.

So I just choke down some brie and nod sweetly. 

I was referring to the latter thought in your response, that we often function as angels and we don't even realize we've done it. Just like the mystery priest at the accident cite, from the perspective of a person in need, we appear out of nowhere and disappear again, with a comforting word, a dollar, a helping hand. Everyone thought for a while there that an angel had come from Heaven.

An "angel" did come from Heaven. Perhaps we need a new word for those times when people become momentary angels, because we all know it happens all the time. Pangels, maybe, for "people as angels". 

There is a need for this kind of thinking, because we call people saints only when they are good all the time (even thought they are not, technically, saints until they are dead and in Heaven...please pass the crackers....).  But most of us are not good all the time. We do, however, shine once in a while. Sometimes we never know the impact we've had at a critical moment in someone else's life, because we are not even aware that the situation was critical.

You've been on the receiving end of this phenomenon, I'm sure.  That moment when you've given up, sagging with the weight of it all, and the nurse is standing there with a cup of tea and a compassionate smile. Pangel. When you've decided you're unlovable and a friend calls out of the blue .Pangel.  When your car stalls in the left turn lane and you sit there helpless while everyone honks and honks and drives around you, when, suddenly, a group of migrant workers in the beat up truck behind you jumps out and pushes your car to the side of the road into a safe spot. Pangels.   Heaven sent? As far as you're concerned, yes.

And the only requirement to become a pangel is to stop. Just stop for a moment for someone else.

You don't even have to be human.  You know "dog" spelled backwards.....

Angels Among Us

I glad I didn't write about what I wanted to write about when I wanted to write about it.

I wanted to write and tell you all about the amazing miracle angel sighting that took place very near where I grew up and was reported on the same channel I sat in front of to watch Ed Sullivan as a child.

Don't you love a good angel/miracle story? I sure do.  This is one of the best ones because it meets all the criteria of a bona fide miracle: instantaneous and unexplained. Plus, for this one, there were tons of witnesses and no pictures. The no pictures part was the best part.

Here is what happened. My favorite part of the story was that more than 80 photographs of the scene were taken and no priest appeared in even one of them, even though everyone at the scene saw and heard him. Not to mention the girl lived.

I meant to write about this all yesterday, I was so tickled with it.

And then yesterday.

Oh well.

A lot of people would still claim this was a miracle, that the priest worked a miracle. Maybe some day when he's dead and in Heaven we'll think of this as a miracle on earth. But our standards for miracles are very strict. Instantaneous and unexplained. And this has been explained. So that's that.

Although...no one expected Katie to live.  And there was that thing about the equipment not working.

Now my favorite part of the story is the one where (before the priest was identified) the mystery priest was none other than St. John Vianney, as the whole thing happened on his feast day and the person who wrote up the story had an artist's rendering of the mystery priest and a portrait of St. John Vianney so we could all see the amazing resemblance.

I failed to see any resemblance whatsoever, let alone an amazing one. Even more amusing, Father Dowling looks nothing like the artist's rendering. At all.

Still, we are buoyed at the story of a priest bringing peace to a suffering accident victim and to the paramedics and police who were serving her. Angels don't always come from Heaven.

Remember that. Because the next angel might be you.

Easy, Medium, Hard

Some questions are so easy to answer. Regarding Blessed Salt:
Where can I get some?

You can't get any. It's a sin to sell blessed objects, even if the object is a grain of salt.  You can have  some blessed salt by taking some salt to a priest and asking him to bless it. Glad we cleared that up.

And some questions are slightly more complex (regarding the hundreds of orders of  nuns and clergy):
And yet another question on the same topic: my mom told me when I was little that habits (the kind that Julie Andrews wore in The Sound of Music) looked the way they did because in the Middle Ages, it was not uncommon for widows to become nuns, and that was what widows wore. Is this totally bogus? And, how did Mother Theresa come up with the habit for her Sisters of Charity (I think that's what they're called)? I noticed some sisters walked around dressed in white-with-blue saris in a picture of Pope Francis' visit to Brazil, and at first I thought, "Gosh, I thought he was in Brazil, not India!" and then I felt dumb because, oh yeah, Sisters of Charity can be in Brazil, too. But it make me think of it. And I think they're beautiful. And they remind me of Mother Theresa, so even if I hadn't thought they were beautiful to start with, I would love them for her sake
Your mother is more or less correct about habits. It is what women wore. Completely covered from head to toe, head always covered with a veil, relatively drab colors. Most, however, did not have monkeys. Does she have a rosary AND a monkey? I can't tell.

This is why I have an issue with people who believe that nuns should have stayed in those elaborate old habits. Nuns can blend in if they want. You need to behave yourself.

Here is an explanation of how Mother Teresa designed her habits.

And some questions....are doozies:
Sister, I’m hoping you can help match my family to an appropriate saint; we are looking to start a novena on behalf of my sister. She is a practicing Catholic and has been in a romantic relationship for around 9 years with a non-Catholic who has expressed discomfort with even discussing marriage. She knows she is in a bad situation but cannot bring herself to end the relationship; she genuinely loves him, he does not have many friends, or a close connection to his family and she believes if she leaves he will do something to himself. She has also struggled for the past two years with finding another full time job. Her life seems to be on pause and we wish to unite our prayers for her guidance. Who would you recommend? Many blessings! A faithful reader.

So you sister is committing suicide because her boyfriend who can't commit might commit suicide. Is that about right? Yes, a novena is in order. The number nine figures prominently in the novena, too.

He doesn't need help (he has everything just the way he wants it) but your sister does. She loves him. But he doesn't love her. He is a selfish man who uses emotional blackmail to continue the relationship. She is the one who is tortured.

Of course, you novena prayers are aware of this.  Very, very well aware. She needs a job. Better, a career. Something she could really sink her teeth into so she can engage in life instead of her bleak and pathetic '"relationship".  

He has no friends or family? Not surprising. He won't create one with her either. He's not a boyfriend, he's an anchor that keeps her ship from setting sail. If he actually loved her, he would at least discuss something that would make her happy. That isn't love. That's manipulation.

She should love him. Jesus commanded us to love everyone.  But He did not command us to play nursemaids to  manipulative selfish people.  She can love him just fine and keep him in her prayers always, while she moves on to have a happy fulfilling life.

There are saints who have had some pretty awful husbands and who managed to pray said husbands into the light. St. Monica, for example.  But St. Monica also engaged herself in a life of prayer and education and usefulness during her tribulation.

So, maybe St. Monica is your novena girl.  And for finding a fulfilling job there is no better Church Triumphant member than Pope John Paull II.  He's going to be a saint any second. He's a saint now, we just haven't made it official.

By the way, I have his new "I'm a saint now" medal available in the shop. I don't have it listed, but I have it. I'll try to put it up there.

Salt of the Earth

Hello Sister, I'm not sure if I submitted my question properly or in the right place some days ago so I thought I'd give it another go. I recently obtained some salt blessed as a sacramental by a priest, and I want to know how it should be used. I can't imagine putting it in a salt shaker on the table, but I've read that some people do that. Is that proper? Or do you have other suggestions for how I might use the salt respectfully? Thanks! A faithful reader

Thanks for being a faithful reader!  Don't put your salt in a salt shaker on the table. You can do that with it, but you might get it confused with the table salt. Or maybe you could get something like this.

Given that people put their blessed salt in sandwich bags and mint tins and candy boxes, the problem isn't with the salt shaker, it's only with not realizing you're putting blessed salt on your hamburger.

It's actually okay to put blessed salt on your hamburger, by the way. As long as you know you're doing it. 

So what's the deal with blessed salt? Is it like having magic beans and a voodoo doll? No.  The salt has no power. Remember when Jesus put mud in a blind man's eye?  Did the mud heal that guy? No. Jesus did. The salt is the same way. Once it's blessed it brings with the power of Jesus through your faith in Him.

Or think of it this way: does the American flag have power? No. Yes.  It has power only through your belief in the country for which it stands. And thank goodness the Pledge of Alliance is stated with good grammar.

So what can you do with your salt?

 Drive out the those neighbors with the yard full of pit bulls who blast heavy metal all day, for one. Yes! I've heard several stories of people who sprinkled blessed salt all around their property, or down the common area of their apartment building, across their own threshold and wherever else they could think to sprinkle it, and next thing they knew the horrifying neighbors were gone.

Ward off the devil.

You can sprinkle it around the house to prevent burglary.

Put a few grains in what you eat or drink for good physical health and/or spiritual health.

You can use it in your car for safety. You could sprinkle it out the car window at a dangerous intersection.

You can use it to break bad habits, too.

Don't worry about a blessed salt mess. Your not supposed to dump salt all over, like you would with boric acid to get rid of fleas.  You just use a few grains everywhere. That way, by the time you vacuum, you won't have to worry about sucking up a lot of blessed salt in your vacuum cleaner bags and how you're going to dispose of  the bag now that it's become a blessed object.

Order

Sister, I've discovered many new religious orders are springing up in the Church. It's so wonderful! I'm curious though, how is a religious order started?

This is probably my favorite question ever. I can't answer it. 

Yes I can. It's just so much. There's just .....so much.   St. Ignatius, St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Frances Cabrini, Carol Gerhardinger..hundreds of founders of hundreds of orders .Like babies, the stories of their births are completely unique and utterly the same.

So let's say you want to start a religious order. You have to make some choices. Habit? or no.  

Habit?  You'll need to design one. Or get a habit designer.  If so many new orders are springing up, it seems to me someone is missing out on a fine niche career opportunity.

What is your order going to do? If you just want everyone to lock themselves into a house and prayer all day, then just go join an order that is already doing that.  If you want everyone to do something that no one else is doing, in terms of meeting the needs of human beings on the planet, write that down.

How is your order going to sustain itself financially? The Church is not responsible for the financial well being of your group. You're on your own with several mouths to feed and bodies to house.  But not necessarily. St. Francis of Assisi had a group of followers that just roamed all around and begged while they preached.  But then, he really wasn't trying to start an order. He started doing something, some people started doing it with him, and making it an order was foisted on him. He didn't even want to be a priest (he thought he was unworthy). That was foisted on him, too.

But I digress. As the founder, you will responsible for your community. Right now you have three people and you. Is that enough? Sure.

Your new idea and little group is called a "Charism".  A gift to the Church and to the world.  Get your mission statement ducks in a row and deal with that habit question and figure out how you will carry out your mission financially speaking (most of us still beg, one way or another).

So far so good. Love your habits!  And look, now you have another person joining! You can take some vows among yourselves to dedicate yourself to Christ through your Charism.  Are you an order? No.

You have to gather you habit patterns and mission statement and talk to the bishop. He might tell you to go home and join some other order. He might tell you that he wouldn't approve of your order if all the other hundreds of orders disappeared in a puff of smoke. He might tell you that you habit design needs work.

(I'm not joking.  A community of men who were all wearing the same T-shirt were reprimanded because it looked to much like a habit and they weren't a religious order. I cannot picture this.  I've never seen the T-shirt habit,  but I think more people would consider religious life if the T-shirt habit was more widely employed.)

It the bishop thinks you've got something there he will give you his blessing, but that's just step one. Like canonization, approving an order goes on for years and there are many steps that lead all the way to Rome.

As your group grows, so do your chances of getting full approval. Ditto for longevity.

If this is all too much for you, you might consider starting a lay order. All you have to do to start a lay order is start a lay order. Done and done.

If you like we can come back and talk about how various orders were founded. Who was Carol Gerhardinger?  Now know as Blessed Theresa, she founded the School Sisters of Notre Dame. She was a German girl who gathered a group of women to teach. They taught me and wore this habit until I was in high school.  I particularly love this rendition of her. Someone truly captured the facial expression of a lifelong teacher.

Teen Angels

Sister Mary Martha, is there any way to tell about how old the Apostles were?

No, there isn't, but that doesn't stop everyone from trying.

We're used to seeing the disciples more or less like this:

If not grey haired, at least wizened looking and thick bearded.There's a bald guy on the end of the table there.  I think the traditional "wisdom" is that the disciples were as old as Jesus, maybe one or two were older. I have known people who went grey or bald in their twenties.  Given that Jesus didn't make it past thirty, that makes the Apostles relatively young.  Relative is an important word here, as the average life expectancy in the time of Christ was...pretty young.  40 was the new 87 back then. A man in his twenties could have had quite a life for himself back then, married as a teenager,at work since he could walk.

So just for the sake of 'we never stop making conjectures about Jesus and His life on earth", let's visit some of the scholarly thoughts scholarly people have had about how old the Apostles were.

Matthew was a tax collector. Since he had a job he must have been older. How old? Who knows.

Peter was married. Older.

Young men did not take instruction from Rabbi's who were younger than them. That makes all of the Apostles younger than Jesus who was 27 when He began His ministry. How much younger? Who knows.

So the images of  these bearded old wizard looking fellows are a bit out of step with what was probably going on. Although beards make you look older and wiser. That's why young men grow them. Unless they're Amish, then it's because they don't use Norelco products.

Certainly the Apostles were in the prime of their lives, as they jumped out on foot and walked all over the known world until they they met their unpleasant demises. I believe John might be the only one who didn't have an unpleasant demise. We don't really know what happened to them all for certain. Here is a rundown of who they were.

Way more fun and worthy of discussion is the new idea that perhaps the disciples were all teenagers.  There are some compelling reasons to buy into this one and some not so compelling reasons.

It's really quite a turn around to consider the Apostles as teens or barely out of their teens.

Peter and Paul give each other the hand shake of peace?  And then have a coke.

Poste Vaticane

Dear SMM- Do you have any idea if the Vatican Office for Sin and Forgiveness (OK, the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary) has its own letterhead or business cards? Just wondering. Slightly more seriously, is there a listing of the different offices of the Vatican anywhere on the Web? It would be interesting to see. Thank you for all the information you give us Sister. 

Are you collecting Vatican letterheads and business cards? I'm sure each office must have it's own letterhead and people who work in these offices have business cards. 

I wonder if they have MOO cards.  These are the new rage.  You can have dozens of pictures in your box of cards.  They could have their own picture, the papal seal, a lovely shot of the Vatican, their favorite saint, a picture of them kissing the Pope's ring, what they had for dinner....the possibilities are endless. 

In any case, it's easy to write to the Vatican and if you get a response, you'll have your collector's item. I'm not sure how you wangle a business card.  Since it's my job to make your connection to the Catholic Church easier and not more difficult, here is a list of all of the Offices of the Vatican.

So to write to anyone, or any office you can use this address:
Name of the Cardinal or Archbishop or Bishop or Priest in charge
Name of the Office
Piazza Pio XII 10
00193 Rome, VATICAN CITY

Don't put "Italy" on the envelope. Vatican City is its own country. The country of Vatican City is in the country of Italy. It's a country called in a city in a city in a country. Don't think about that too much. It's not a "Sacred Mystery" but it's almost as baffling.

It's okay if you don't know who is in charge of the office, just address it to the office. Maybe if you write to the office and ask who is in charge, they'll send you a letter with the business card of that person!

And as long as you're at it, you might want to suggest Moo cards to them as the new rage, since the Pope is tweeting indulgences and whatnot.  

A Little Bird Told Me

The headline reads: Pope Offers Indulgences Through Twitter.

Well, why not?  The Vatican Office on Sin and Forgiveness is all for it.

Did you know the Vatican had an office just for sin and forgiveness? Probably not. It's not called that, but it's actual name is even less well known (if that's even possible). The Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary.  Not to be confused with prison. It's not a Sacred Apostolic jail.

The whole issue of indulgences makes the separated brethren's heads spin, because it's pretty much why we have separated brethren. (Unless we're talking about the Anglican and Episcopal church, that was all about the messy divorce of Henry VII. Very messy, what with all those severed heads.)

I really hate to have to explain it all again. Here goes.

Indulgence: time off of your punishment (purgatory) for sins that have already been forgiven.
Already hard to understand since purgatory is outside of time. There is no time in purgatory but you get time off from the time you would have spent there. Calm down and remember this is what we call a "Sacred Mystery".  "Sacred Mystery" is "Catholic" for "just let it go". And by that I mean, there are things you will never be able to understand because God made it that way and that's okay.

Away back when, you had to climb up steps on your knees or go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land or fight in the Crusades to earn an indulgence. And then someone rightly pointed out that it wasn't fair that only able bodied wealthy people (because such things are long and arduous and take capital) could earn indulgences, so the Church found other things to indulge. Certain prayers, walking the Stations of the Cross (invented by St. Francis of Assisi for just this purpose), that sort of thing. There are still steps you can climb, not necessarily on your knees.

Which brings us to the tweeting Pope. Attending World Youth Day earns an indulgence. But like going on a Crusade, not everyone can get there. So the Pope offered the indulgence to people who follow what's going on at World Youth Day on social media, which includes Twitter. And now we have some silly headlines.

I'll leave it to smarter people to explain it all better if your hair is still on fire.

The Devil is in the Details

I know that saying "Oh my God" is using God's name in vain and is against the ten commandents. But what about "Oh my gosh"?

There are people who would argue that is is a sin because "Oh my gosh" is some kind of  old time way of actually saying "Oh my God". 

I would not be one of those people.While it might have been true that at some point in time people actually knew gosh really meant God, the truth is, these days, people saying "Oh my gosh" are expressly trying NOT to take the Lord's name in vain.

Sin is about intent.

When my mother was upset she would shriek, "Oh St. Peter and Paul and all the saints!"  I think she was praying, because she did that when something had scared her really badly, like the time she answered a knock at the front door and my dad was standing there with glasses on that had eyeballs on springs. He manages to time it just right so that the eyeballs boinged off the glasses just as she opened the door. I really think she wanted the saints to save her from the google monster and wasn't taking anyone's name in vain.

And look there. Google means something different these days, too.

 Sister, I just read a wonderful book called Let the Great World Spin that made me think of you, because one of the main characters is I guess what you'd call a mendicant friar, ministering to prostitutes in the Bronx in the 1970s, when New York was at it's lowest point. It's the most compassionate novel I've ever read and I'd recommend it to you unreservedly except for some un-nunlike language and situations. One thing bothers me, though. That character fell in love--genuine, deep, requited love--with a widowed nurse in the nursing home he worked at and after much spiritual torment broke his vows, then died before confessing. I can handle the thought of him doing time in purgatory because of that sin, but being kept out of heaven altogether after all the Christlike good he had done...? Surely not! Please tell me it's not so! He voluntarily turned away from God, did he not? 
I can't tell you it's not so.

I also can't tell you that it is so.

This is why we have the canonization process, to prove that a person is in Heaven. This is why we would rather you didn't pray for the intercession of your dead Aunt Millie, saintly old soul that she may have been, because we don't know where she is. The Catholic Church never says anyone is in Hell. Not even Hitler, because at the last moment, Hitler might have had a moment of clarity and repented somehow.

What happens to you after you die is between you and God and not the rest of us.

And this case isn't cut and dry for that exact reason.  Priests do leave the priesthood.  Did they get married or did he just run off with the nurse?  He could have a boatload of mortal sins there. Scandal would be on that list because the sin of scandal is that you doing something makes it seem like it must be okay for the rest of us. If he didn't reconcile himself with God, then the ex-priest has a problem. A really big problem, as clergy get harsher punishment in the great beyond because they are responsible for the souls of others.

I wouldn't worry about it. He's a fictional character. So he's not in Heaven or in Hell, or anywhere else for that matter.  He is ink on a page.

I can't think that New York was at it lowest point in the 1970's.  New York in the 1860"s?  New York in 1930? New York in 1960?  What did I miss? 

Ports in a Storm

Hi, Sister. Recently my family sold our house-- a lot more quickly than we expected. This is great, except that now we have to find a new place to live in just a few weeks, and we're having trouble. I know you're supposed to ask for the intercession of St. Joseph to sell your house. Who are you supposed to ask for prayers when you want to find a new house...fast?

That's St. Joseph, too. He buys and sells real estate. You may recall that St. Joseph had to move his family right quick. Over night.  He found a place in Egypt (not that you'd want to go there these days).

Hi sister, I just learned that I had salmonella poisoning, although thankfully it wasn't severe. At about the same time my best friend became extremely ill and had to be operated. All this to say we barely came out and are intensely grateful for our lives. As my friend put it, its like God came down and shook us and said wake up and see that your not immortal, fools. Is there a saint or a particular prayer for situations like these? 

I am a little confused. A prayer for when these things are happening or a prayer of gratitude that you came out unscathed?  I don't think you need any intercessory prayer to be grateful, unless you were already praying for the intercession of a saint and the saint came through for you. I always thank people for praying for me.  I hope everyone does, even if those people were in Heaven at the time that they prayed for you.

So a patron saint then for when the storm is raging. That would be our old pal St. Scholastica. She was the sister of St. Benedict. They were twins.

Not identical twins. Don't you hate it when people cluelessly ask a mother of twins, a boy and a girl, "Are they identical?"  I have actually seen that happen.  "Do you know what identical means?"  I would be tempted to make that my answer. Or, "One is a boy and one is a girl, so, NO."  The mothers in question have always been gracious and simply answered, "No."  Perhaps they were thinking, "...you dumb bunny..."

Anyhow, St. Scholastica was having a swell visit with her brother at his monastery. She was having such a good time that she didn't want to leave.  She prayed there would be some excuse for her to stay and a huge storm blew up. She got to spend the rest of the evening with her brother and then she died the next day.

Now she is the patron saint invoked against raging storms, which is a little odd, since she brought the storm rather than ended it.  She was pretty happy about the raging storm.

The fact remains that she is the patron saint to keep us safe from storms and when there is a raging storm I do think of her.

You might also think about St. Paul.  God came and gave him quite the shake, too.

The Lord Giveth and you know what comes next

Holy cow! I didn't realize I was so behind on answering questions! I also can't believe how many posts start with exactly this type of apology. Long ago I made a list of sins for the new millennium (way back when the millennium was new), things like watching Mass for Shut-Ins when you're not shut in and counting that as Mass. Perhaps I need to update the list to include "if you find yourself apologizing too much on the internet, do better".  

At any rate, here is today's question. A doozie, and I expect that it will spawn a lot of remarks, and further questions. Which will no doubt take me forever to answer for which I will have to apologize. I apologize in advance.

I didn't see a contact, so I'll leave my question here. Actually, it's my 15 year old son's question. He has some doozies! He was wondering why God put a hit on the Egyptian first born children (specifically - 10th plague) when He was trying to get the Jews their freedom via Moses (Exodus). He thinks it was an act of terrorism. Sigh, I tried to explain it, but he is not buying a more philosophical, broader interpretation. I think he reads the news too much! He doesn't understand why innocent children had to die at the Lord's hands.

How did you explain it?  Just wondering.

I don't think you can ever read the news too much.

It's much simpler than it would seem. God gives life and He can take it away. He's doing it RIGHT NOW. We never get to question that, although we almost always do.  We do not get to do God's job by taking life away. If we kill people on masse like that it is an act of terrorism. If God does it, He's just being God.

I know that doesn't sound like a satisfying answer.  There are other explanations I have read but they cause me to roll my eyes so far up into my head I can find old phone numbers from 1972 in my brain.

Let me digress for a moment and tell you the absolute stupidest one I found. This fellow had gone through the pains to figure out who died.  For example, if you had four sons and your eldest had already died someone, you wouldn't have lost your second born in the plague. No first born who were daughters went.  First borns who were grown ups were eliminated, I guess if they were now heads of households? Anyhow, doing the math, he figured out that only 3% of the populated were taken by God and compared that to hundreds of thousands that the Egyptians had killed, or some other group who had decimated the Jewish people in some other big conflagration. And that made it okay with this fellow.

And I thought, "Are you kidding me?"  Killing children is not about numbers. They are not prunes. "Is a few enough? Are six too many?"

Back to my answer.

So about now, your son is not going to be happy with my answer, But he's framing the question incorrectly. God doesn't kill anybody.  If you want to frame the question that way, you have to actually say, God kills everybody, as He alone chooses when to take us home. 

This time He chose to make a point by taking souls back to Heaven.  (Technically, those souls in Egypt would have gone to the Limbo of the Fathers and Jesus would have taken them to Heaven when He was there after He died and before He rose.)

God takes thousands of babies and children every single day. Miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, accidents, illnesses.  He's killing them left and right, if that's how you choose to see it.

What happens here is here and gone. We are here because God loves us into existence. Then He takes us home again.

Saint Pope and Saint Pope

We are besides ourselves with glee for the upcoming canonization of both Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII. 

If you don't watch the news endlessly crawling across the bottom of the TV screen you may have missed the second miracle for John Paul II coming through.  You may have not even heard about the first miracle.

Let's review. I'll give you a moment to familiarize yourself with the rule book.

Okay...so the the first miracle was a nun with Parkinsons. Her order prayed for the Pope's intercession after he died and Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre was cured of the debilitating disease. I love her name, by the way. Sister Mary Simon Peter in English, so to speak.

Since then we've been waiting for the second miracle. Some saints wait a long time. Some are still waiting. And then last week, here we go!

The actual miracle happened a while back, but it takes time to prove that it actually was a miracle: instantaneous and unexplained.  The doctors have to sign off on it and then the theologians have to examine it.

Our second miracle is a woman from Costa Rica who was cured of a brain aneurysm. It's does involve a talking magazine, but we'll overlook that part.  It wasn't really a talking magazine.  

Florabeth Mora Diaz had just gotten back from her doctor visit with the bad news that her brain aneurysm was incurable and inoperable.  She was feeling pretty low and went in her room to pray. She prayed for the intercession of Pope John Paul II and she head him say, "Rise, don't be afraid."

Here comes the magazine part. She said that she had returned from the doctor's and watched the beatification ceremony of John Paul II on TV. I suppose that's what gave her the idea to ask him for his intercessory prayers. She heard him talking to her from the cover of a magazine.

" I was surprised. I kept looking at the magazine.  I said, "Yes, Lord", and I got up, " she said.

Her husband was surprised to see her emerge from the bedroom rather chipper.  She told him, "I feel better."  There was a good reason for that. The aneurysm was gone.  Her neurosurgeon, Dr. Vargas said, "What we found remarkable, unbelievable really, was that by November there was absolutely no trace in her brain that she ever had an aneurysm. I had never seen this in my career."

So talking magazine notwithstanding, we do have a miracle here.

Isn't this exciting!  And how wonderful that the person that beatified Pope John XXIII will be canonized along with him. Double bonus.

What will his patronage be? I have always pegged him for the patron saint of people who are looking for one of those really long term jobs, which used to be at the post office. I'm not sure those jobs still exist. 

But obviously he will be the patron saint for Parkinson's sufferers, as he suffered from it himself AND had the miracle nun cure.

We have questions in the queue but today we just want to sit back and enjoy the intercession!