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Life is tough. Nuns are tougher.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

You're a Nurse, You Make a Difference

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

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

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

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

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

But most of them are the bees knees.


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


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

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

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

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

7 comments:

Jennifer said...

http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-cajetan/

http://graceandspace.org/welcome/moments/novena/155-novena-to-st-cajetan.html

St. Cajetan is also the Patron of Job seekers.

NCSue said...

Thanks for the plug for nurses! I've been one for nearly 40 years - not in a Catholic hospital - but I'm a pretty darn good nurse anyway and love the profession. Absolutely love it. It is a ministry as well as a job, there are many, many different aspects of nursing one can enter if one becomes bored or unchallenged, but ANY field within nursing is exploding with new things to learn almost daily.

Isn't Camillus de Lillus also a saint nurses can call on?

Unknown said...

Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin. Celebration of Feast Day is April 30.

peace,
dove

JTS said...

Dear sister, would you mind putting up a link to an Irish Catholic blog: www.catholicheritage.blogspot.com on your excellent blog? God bless you! Jim

Mary Bennett said...

I don't really have anything to add, but I would love it sister if you would visit my blog and leave a comment. It'd be the Bees Knees!!

MaryB
http://marynate.blogspot.com/2010/08/when-i-feel-nostalgic.html

Devotee said...

Dear Sister,
I just discovered your blog and I love it :) I have a question for you. How are we to deal with all of the misconceptions that people we know have about the Catholic Church, especially to do with sexual abuse by priests? I have researched adequate defences to these problems, but these are complex issues of which many people are resistant to explanations. Such perceptions are continually perpetrated, and people, especially lapsed Catholics I know, use them as a justification to reject the Catholic faith. They don't like being challenged in their perceptions, and never give me time to explain. Is there a way to gently change their hearts, for their own sake, and for the sake of the people whom these ideas hurt? It needs to be gentle, because I'm not good at being pushy. I can't tell you how much this frustrates me.
Regards

Anne said...

Dear Sister,
First of all I love your Blog. My husband and I have become both unemployed, we are in our mid forties, no children and friends have disappeared. We are both practicing Catholics. I was bullied out of my job and at times I still the pain of the situation and pray for the people who rejoiced at my tears. I feel very low at times and feel pain because it was really not what i had planned and forseen in my future. I am now praying to Saint Jude and as him to make an employment opportunity happen. Please remember us in your prayers, Anne and John,