Summer Rain

St. Swithun, along with Batman, has a whole new fan club of people new to the bandwagon.

Thanks for that introduction to St. Swithun, Sister! I didn't know anything about him. I also love the picture of him standing in the rain! Any chance the artist would sell more copies of it?

That painting was done by a fellow Esty artist, B Meg Designs. I'm sure she would be more than happy to accommodate you. I told her there were no real pictures of St. Swithun from which to draw and I told her his story. She came up with that wonderful plaque which hangs right by the door so I can at least pretend it might be raining.

I'll bet you could ask her to paint just about any saint you'd like for that matter. What else is she doing with her time? She's an artist!

Dear Sister: Could you tell me who drew the picture of St. Swithin that you posted at the top of this post? The one with the geese. It looks very much like something my son, Ben Hatke, drew. Ben is a pretty well known artist and illustrator and I can usually recognize his work. Thanks! Mrs. Hatke

I'm sorry I can't. Why don't you show it to Ben and ask him. I can't see a signature on there. Your son is very handsome. My father liked breakfast the best, too. When he wouldn't eat we could always tempt him with eggs.


Long time reader, first time petitioner: I'm trying to find a patron saint for camping. A group of friends and I are going camping next week and I wanted to get a head-start looking for assistance for good weather and a happy camping trip.

You could always go with St. Joseph. I'm sure he did plenty of camping on his way from Nazareth to Bethlehem, from Bethlehem to Egypt, and finally from Egypt to Nazareth. I'll bet he has some fabulous camping tips. Oh, the stories he could tell. Scarey Herod stories around the campfire! And he didn't even have a car!

I'd also have to throw in a word for St. Anthony the Hermit. Anthony was the original hermit monk. He invented hermit monking. He found he just couldn't be holy around other people all the time. Back then they weren't even talking on their cell phones all the time or text messaging constantly or any of that superlatively annoying stuff. So he packed up to go live in a cave.

Unfortunately, people followed him. So he moved to a farther cave. And on and on. I don't think the people that followed him were as good at being holy or camping as St. Anthony was. They found it necessary to live a little bit near each other. They formed a hermit monk support group.

The hermit monk support group eventually came to be called a "monastery".

And now you know...the REST of the story. Thank you Paul Harvey. My father loved him, too.



In February 2006, I visited St. Swithun's (or Swithin's, as they spelled it on the historical markers) original burial site and his reconstructed shrine at Winchester Cathedral in England. Unfortunately, during the Reformation, his relics were pulled from his second tomb and thrown into a big pile of other saints' relics that had been in the Cathedral, in the yard outside the Cathedral. After the mob that desecrated the relics had left, monks came back and collected all the bones, placing them in large chests that are now inside the Cathedral. So St. Swithin is still there, but nobody knows where exactly among all the jumbled bones. Some of his relics (head, arms) had also been sent to other places (for example, Canterbury had his head), but I don't know if they were similarly desecrated (probably, the mobs were very thorough) and lost. And, although my visit was in February and in July, it was raining cats and dogs. But only in Winchester. Not raining north of there, or south of there, just in Winchester. I guess he's still upset about all the mistreatment.

Yes, I knew about that. I didn't want to bring it up. It upsets people. Hope your vacation wasn't ruined by all the rain or saint parts.