The Patron Saint of Exam Acers

 I work at a Catholic high school and 1st exams will be upon us in a few weeks.I would like to have some holy cards available for the students so they know who to ask for help with their exams. Who are the saints for the major school subjects: Math, English, Social Studies and Science...ooh and Theology too?

You need look no farther than St. Albert the Great for all you scholarly patron saintage. He was the teacher of the patron saint of teachers and students, St. Thomas Aquinas. Both saints are Doctors of the Church.  ohh and the that makes them particularly good choices for theology patronage.

And while we're on the subject of Doctors of the Church you might want to introduce your girls to three girls in Heaven who are Doctors of the Church: St. Therese the Little Flower, St. Catherine of Sienna, and St. Teresa of Avila. I think of them as the patron saint for people who are annoyed by the annoying habits of other, the patron saint of dieters, and the patron saint of perfectionists, respectively, But obviously they are all good choices for theology. I'll bet St. Catherine would be good for penmanship, too. She wrote a  lot of letters.

Is penmanship even a subject anymore? It should be.  Although the Palmer Method? That was for the birds.

I think outside the box, patron saint-wise, as my readers well know. If you're looking for someone to help you with your exams, I'd also turn to St. John Cupertino. He really could barely read or understand anything, but when it came time to take his priestly exam, the bishop asked him one question about one particular passage of Scripture. It was a passage that John was obsessed with...the ONLY one. So he aced his exam. That would make him the patron saint of exam acers.

I had a similar experience once in college. I was taking philosophy in summer school but I had missed the first day of class.  One evening I watched a documentary about Washoe, the chimp who had been taught sign language. The chimp using sign language proved that this animal was able to use symbolic thought by signing, when presented with a  doll in a cup, "Baby in my drink."  She also made jokes. 

The next day in class we covered a chapter in our book about what separates people from animals and there was a list of things. One of them was that animals were incapable of symbolic thought and another humor (which involves a lot of symbolic thought, when you think about it). So I explained what I had seen this chimp do and was able to knock three or fours things off that list in the book. Making and using tools was on there, too. Chimps also make and use tools and use some types of deductive reasoning.

Unbeknownst to me, because I had missed the first day of class, we had each been assigned a chapter of the book. I was supposed to lead the discussion of that chapter. That was the chapter I had been assigned. I had no clue until I was told I got an A on "my chapter".  I didn't even know I was leading the discussion.

I digress.

Another saint who believed in the power of education was St. Thomas More, who believed that boys and girls should be educated equally, a radical idea for his time. 

I'm sure our readers will pile on with some more wonderful ideas. 

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.