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Life is tough. Nuns are tougher.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Empty Nest Syndrome


A kind reader pointed out that the Killer Baby Jesus stories are in the Book of Thomas, not the book of whatever I yammered it was the other day. Thank you for the much needed correction.


I love this idea of just laying out the problem. So simple, and new to me.
 I would like to request help finding a saint to pray with
 (in the new vernacular) for my baby sister, who starts
 college in the fall. Our mother died when she was 13, and
 I had the great blessing of being more involved in her 
"growing up" than we had anticipated. I'm not looking forward 
to her leaving, and would like to be able to direct that energy 
in prayer.  Any suggestions? Thanks. I enjoy this blog. :)


The actual patron saint for young people leaving home
for the first time is an angel, St. Raphael. He accompanied 
young Tobias all over the place and even helped him find 
the love of his life. As a result, St. Raphael is also the 
patron saint of young lovers.

But it sounds to me like you're looking for a saint for 
your own "empty nest syndrome".

St. Rita springs to mind, because she went off and became 
a nun after her husband was killed by the mob and her 
sons died.  But then...she had always wanted to be a nun. 
Not that she didn't grieve the loss of her husband and sons. 
It's just that she finally got to fulfill her lifelong dream of
 life in the convent, complete with stigmata.

So I'm going with St. Elizabeth, who is actually the patron saint for blissfully
 happy marriages. St. Elizabeth was betrothed, fairy tale style, to the infant
 King of Thuringia and they pair was wed when she was only 14 years old. 
You'd think this was a recipe for disaster, but she loved her husband intensely.

Elizabeth always tried to live simply and give everything to the poor, even 
though she was the queen. And her husband Louis agreed!  He tried too, and
 encouraged his wife in her endeavors.

They had three children.  And then poor Louis went off to the crusades and
 never returned. I think he died of illness, never making it to the Holy Land at all. 
Or he was killed fighting. I can't recall.

Ever wonder why so many hospitals bear the name "Elizabeth"?  It's because 
the inconsolably sad Elizabeth made arrangements for her three children to be 
cared for and immersed herself completely in the care of the poor and ill. You
 might say she invented the hospital, gathering up the sick the way she did and 
seeing to their needs.

This is St. Elizabeth of Hungary, by the way, not to be confused with 
St. Elizabeth the mother of St. John the Baptist, although if she was still 
alive after John left home, she might have felt pretty bad and wished he 
had stayed home with her.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi SMM, I dont know if you remember, but awhile back (months), I had posted a cry of help on here. My husband and I were out of jobs, illness, depression, the whole drama was happening, and I had nowhere to go anymore. I posted, and the very next day, you re-posted, and gave me that hope I needed. You even created a prayer circle, and all the kind comments from everyone, it was just more than anything I could have hoped for. I would not be exagerating if I said that we were in a very bad place, and I felt so crushed suicide flitted in and out of my thoughts. Well here we are months later, thankfully alive, we both have employment, were both doing so much better health wise, and were working hard to erase the debt we accumulated. Thanks to you, your readers, you gave me a ray of sunshine which gave me the hope and strenght to carry on just a little bit further, and the devil did not get my soul that night. Every night since, Ive prayed for you, and thanked God Almighty for showing me your blog, and for the kindness in other people. Thank you, Sister Mary Martha, for the good you bring to us.

betsyann said...

Thank you! This is a most suprising and interesting answer-as our Mom was named Rita and my name is Elizabeth. I know St. Rita fairly well (also my youngest daugher's name), and I've been meaning to learn more about St. Elizabeth of Hungary.