All Souls Day

We are in the home stretch for Halloween and not a moment too soon. We have managed to stay our of Joanne's Fabric Store, but not without looking under couch cushion and in Sister Mary Fiacre's wheelchair for loose buttons, pieces of thread, safety pins and whatever other notions we can find to hold these costumes together. If only we were rich. If only the people who needed costumes were rich. If only someone had seventy dollars plus shipping. We could have avoided the whole thing by sending everyone here.

I'm not that big a fan of dressing children up as saints for Halloween. I think it's a little...wet blanketish. But there are a few costumes that might be fun and get the kids excited about learning more about a saint.

Here's little Kateri Tekakwitha. That's kind of fun. They left the smallpox out of the picture. And since Kateri isn't a saint yet, maybe a few kids dressing up like her will help her cause for sainthood. She could have her little brothers and sisters dress up like turtles and follow her around. I would have gone for that as a girl. When in doubt, I was always a bum.

That used to be a great costume. Now we don't have bums anymore. Just homeless people.


Little Rose of Lima is nice. I think she should have a crown made of something that looks like glass. That sort of thing was really a habit for St. Rose of Lima. Or she could have some embroidery with her or something. I always think of St. Rose of Lima as the patron saint of crafters. Her parents were hoping to marry her off to a rich fellow and when Rose dodged that idea to become a nun and live in her own backyard, she made up for the family's loss of rich husband income by making things to sell.

This Mother Teresa costume, although it is very lovely, is a wet blanket outfit for sure. We love Mother Teresa, but she's not a fun Halloween gal.

At all.


For boys, who could resist St. George, even if he is one of those highly dubious saints? I like St. George, but we know his story is...exaggerated. How do we know? Dragons, anyone? If you dress up as St. George you may as well dress up as Superman or Robin Hood. Any of those three should please any little boy.

I like this little St. John the Baptist, but after I thought about it, it seems a little embarrassing for a little boy to run around in a gunny sack with a belt and nothing else. If I were that little boy, I'd pretty much feel like I was wearing a mini skirt. Well, maybe not a mini skirt. But....you know what I mean. It's really like wearing a dress. We call this style a 'shift' isn't that right?


And on the wet blanket side, Cardinal Neumann is a fun killer. Trick or Treat!

Say, that reminds me, I read the other day that they dug Cardinal Neumann up for his cause of sainthood (it's one of the first steps) and he wasn't there. I can tell you that really struck me, because for years people have been asking me why we dig people up at all and I have explained a million times to a million people that we need to find out if the person is really there so that folks aren't standing around a vault with Joe the Plumber in it offering their prayers and petitions. So you can imagine my shock to hear that Cardinal Neumann was gone.

It was his grave and his coffin, however. He had just completely decomposed. Only his Cardinal suit was left.

Not that this costume has anything to do with that.



Today's Nun So Beautiful is from Sue, who tells us that this nun fell over because she saw the Pope.

Sister Mary Martha, Stealth Clown

I am used to small children being afraid of me. Who can blame them? From their perspective, I'm actually scarier than a clown. Which reminds me. I posted this picture the other day. A nun AND a clown. Why is that child not screaming blue murder? Maybe she is. We really can't see her face, now can we?

I digress.

To small children, I'm sure I look like some big scary witch or some kind of black pterodactyl bat witch. But this is a first. I actually upset a little baby girl and I wasn't even there. Poor baby.


One of our wonderful readers, who is also a cake nut, made our horrible ugly cake that tastes so delicious. The poor baby didn't know the cake would be delicious. The poor baby just took one look at this cake and lost it. Apparently, this baby is a true connoisseur of how a cake ought to look, which is not surprising seeing how her mother is a cake expert.

This lovely woman threw a little party for us in honor of our Blogger's Choice Award. It looks like a fun party and the baby eventually calmed down. You would have thought there was a picture of me on top of the cake.

Meanwhile, Sister St. Aloysius has glommed on to the cake blog. I'm sure I'll have to go the long way to the Post Office with our shop orders from now on or someone will have to roll me there. Maybe we'll throw a one nun bake sale. If you come, you'll know which cake to grab. That really ugly looking one. The one that makes the baby cry.




Today's Nun So Beautiful is from reader James Baird








Sister Alyssa
Looks like someone snapped a picture of her at work.

What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas

We came in third. I should be excited that we placed in the top three. But we came in third last year, too, so it feels to me like we've made no progress. In particular, I feel I should have been paying attention all along instead of just at the last minute and maybe we would have done better.

Don't get me wrong. It's not about being a 'winner'. As far as I can tell, the whole thing is fake or something anyhow, as there is some kind of party in Las Vegas for the winners and we were never notified of winning at all or asked to go to Vegas. We couldn't have gone to Vegas anyhow, but it would have been nice to be invited.

For me, it's about having more visitors. We love our visitors. Please keep visiting.


Sister, can you give us a novena to start on Monday ending on election day for Godly leaders for our country?

Not exactly. I've been working on this. I wanted to go for a novena to St. Constantine. He was my first pick. He turned the whole world Catholic. Okay, not really the whole world. But a huge enough and important enough part of it that Catholicism spread like wildfire. You remember St. Constantine? As in Emperor Constantine? As in Constantinople? Of course you do. That's because you had a Catholic (decent) education.

How did Constantine do it? The answer is the very thing that makes him a ripe pick for our election novena: he made it illegal to not be Christian. You might put a nicer spin on that by saying he legalized Christianity, but you wouldn't be entirely accurate. St. Constantine just made it harder and harder for people to stay pagan by chipping away at what pagans could and could not do, i.e. hold office, own property....until it was simply illegal to be pagan altogether.

He did it a little at a time. It worked out very well because being Christian worked out much better for everyone, better than worshiping those bulky stone statues and all those gods. Not to mention the cost in sacrifices to them.

So if ever there was a person who brought Christian ideals to the world, it would be St. Constantine. But I can't find a novena to him. So then I thought, well, St. Constantine would not have been Christian himself were it not for his sainted mother, St. Helena. Plus, she was the person who discovered the relics of the True Cross and whatnot.

I can't find a novena to her either.

I was also thinking of St. Thomas More, a terrific family man and the person who stood up to King Henry VII. He lost his head for it.

No novena for him, either.

That's not to say you can't go ahead and just make up your own prayers for your election novena to St. Constantine, St. Helena or St. Thomas More.

But I realize that most people want a novena spelled out for them a bit more because they have a hard enough time remembering to keep with the novena in the first place.

Then I found out that some people are calling for a Rosary Novena for the election. Now this seems like a great plan to me! First of all, a rosary novena is an easy thing to remember to do. Secondly, didn't Our Lady ask us to say rosaries for the fate of the world? She has been trying to pound this into our heads for years now. She keeps having to come back over and over again to remind everybody. Thirdly, I always say when things are really tough, go for the big guns. And finally, there is something to be said for a lot of people saying the same prayer together. Gives the whole thing more ooomph.

Which reminds me...there IS a novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. How about a rosary novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help? Done Deal!

Today's nuns are brought to you by the letter "L".

Says Lauren:

Please note: I did not take these pictures but have found them beautiful and helpful in my vocational discernment.

Summit, NJ Dominican Nun

Carmelites of the Divine Heart of Jesus

Easy Peasy Really Quesy

I shouldn't have had any cake. It would have been better to field this question on an empty stomach.

Robert said...

The cake sounds tasty, no matter how it may look. I do have a question for you: I've been out of work since April and my employment insurance is about to run out. I am desperatly seeking work, however, have been turned down for every job I've applied for so far. Out of desperation, I applied for a job as a cashier at a local er...adult...novelty...store... I myself am a virgin and plan to remain one until marriage, nor do I really condone the use of such uh...products. But, I really need a job (eviction is imminent) and they are the only company that seems interested in having me as an employee. What should I do? Should I take the job? If I did, would it be concidered a sin to work in such an industry?

The store also sells cakes.
Just not ones I'd eat.

I feel urp-py.

One of the reasons that the Catholic Church emphasizes a happy, happy life in heaven is that often life here on earth is no picnic. We are expected, when life is no picnic, to walk it off and offer it up to the Poor Souls in Purgatory.

So the simple answer is: starve first.

There is a much more complex answer, though, that involves what we call a "Near Occasion of Sin". A "Near Occasion of Sin" is Catholic Church lingo for "in harm's way". Of course, we are in harm's way constantly. We really can't leave the house. We can't stay in the house either. A lot of our sins are thriving right inside our own skulls. Only a labotomy could keep us out of harm's way, sinwise.

And while a Near Occasion of Sin isn't that hard to fathom, the four different types of Near Occasions of Sins can be a little more daunting.

Proximate: meaning one generally falls into sin

Remote: meaning one sometimes falls.

Necessary: meaning one cannot avoid.

Voluntary: meaning one could avoid with a little will power. Or a lot of will power.

Will power is always involved, in any case.

Spelled out thusly, you new job fires on all pistons. Your only sin loophole is that it may be necessary, as in, you can't get any other job.

Meanwhile, you're peddling sin, standing knee deep in sin every working hour, putting up the sin displays and answering customers questions about how to sin better.

Some loophole. I think the only way you get away with the "necessary" loophole is if you don't actually work for these people but ask to set up a table with pamphlets about the Catholic Church and St. Agnes and St. Maria Goretti and such and they actually say yes. It would be a great place to set up a table with scapulars on it and whatnot.

We are so sorry you mentioned their cake.

There are several patron saints for job hunting and financial stability. St. Joseph the Worker, springs to mind. I'm found of St. John of God, as well, as he wandered around aimlessly doing not so nice things for quite some time before he finally went looney and Jesus paid him a visit in the nut house. I would say 'psych ward', but they didn't have psych wards back then. They only had nut houses.

Good luck to you. Far be it from me to tell you that you have to go starve. I just recommend it.

And as long as our stomaches are already turned:

Sister, have you ever seen Corn Smut? It is a black, ugly, fungus-like growth that infects an ear of corn and ruins it. If you ever see it, you won't forget it, as it is very, very yucky looking. Smut is a perfect name for impure images.

Yes, I have. Thanks for the reminder.

So...no nun pictures today. Just...not today....

Here We Go!

Here we go!

I'm just going to post the Nun So Beautiful pictures in the order in which they were received. Thank the Good Lord we are not required to pick a winner.

Here's the very first one that came in and a great start to the big parade of nuns.


Hello Sister, I would like to enter my friend, Sister Agnes Marie of the Eternal High Priest OCD Who is one of the Extern sisters at our Carmelite Monastery here in Buffalo, NY. She recently made her Perpetual Profession and we had permission from Mother Mariam of Jesus To take pictures.. I hope she wins.. Love, Ellen from Buffalo,NY



Now back to the grindstone.

Sister, I have a question for you about holy water. I understand there are two types - the kind consecrated by a priest (that I use to cross myself when entering and leaving church), and the kind from shrines such as Lourdes. I am wondering what Catholics are required to believe about these two types of holy water vs. what we might believe from Catholic small-t tradition (as you've called it in other posts.) Do we believe consecrated water has special powers of healing the sick, or the ability to ward off evil? Thank you.

Pretty much, yes we do. Although there is a difference between Lourdes water and holy water.

I have to have a nap before I try to explain. There is also a difference between blessed and consecrated.

Two naps.

If I sneeze and you say, "Bless you!" you are wishing me goodness and health. Blessings are the transference or prayer for good. Goodness is transferred from God to you. Are we on the same page here?

When the priest blesses someone or something (like your rosary) that's exactly what he is doing but, because he is a priest, he has supernatural power.

I hope that doesn't upset you. When we say supernatural we mean exactly that. Outside the realm of the earth. We aren't referring to werewolves, vampires and zombies.


I once had a third grader who was concerned that when Lazarus was brought back form the dead he came back as a zombie. I had to explain that Lazarus was just alive and happy again, not a dead person who had a spell cast on him to take away his will and make him forever slowly serve drinks on a silver tray and trudge around and strangle people one doesn't care for.



A priest giving a blessing is not a person casting a spell. He is bestowing good from outside nature. Supernatural good from God.

Still on the page?

The priest blesses objects to set them apart for sacred use for the Kingdom of God. Easy breeze lemony squeezy.

There are two types of blessings: simple and solemn, also called consecrations. What's the dif?

Consecrations are a bigger deal. It doesn't exactly make the object or person any more blessed. It makes the person or object more specifically blessed. A consecration is a more specific blessing, just like a prayer can be general ("Please look after the good health of my family") or specific ("please heal Aunt Agatha's gout").

Lourdes water is a whole other category. Lourdes water was consecrated by Mary herself, set aside for specific use (except for poor little Bernadette).

Anyhow, to answer your final question, 'are we to believe that holy water has supernatural power?', I would say, yes, by definition it does. Otherwise, during an exorcism the priest could just stick your head under the faucet or douse you with a hose.

Lazarus might make a fun Halloween costume. Everyone would think he was a zombie, but we would know better.

Boy Talk

Of course it rained. We only had a little leak, because it was only a little rain.

Our thoughts on St. Maria Goretti solicited this question:

So many pure saints... Only sometimes I, as a male, may ask: what about some patron saint of "male" chastity? I mean, I do take St Cecilia, St Maria Goretti, et al. as patrons for my own purity... But sometimes I would like an example of my same gender. May I think in the great St. Joseph. Any other ideas?

St. Joseph is an excellent thought! You are a good patron saint matcher. Sometimes you have to think outside the box. For example, I think whatever else St. Vincent de Paul might have up his sleeve as a patron saint, he is also the patron saint of pirates. He was kidnapped by pirates once. I'm not sure anyone needs a patron saint of pirates, but if they do, he's your man. Pirates need someone to help them not be pirates.

I digress.

Another reader also suggested St. Aloysius, who is the official patron saint of chastity. Was he ever chaste! Chaste with a side of prude. St. Aloysius took a private vow of chastity at age nine. He would not look a woman in the face, even his own mother. We love him! He's also the patron saint of choir boys.


There is, however, a whole avenue of chaste saints that goes unexplored. I would go with any of the saints who were hermit monks. I would put forth this theory, which I've held for sometime, which is that the whole reason they became hermit monks was to remain chaste.

The first famous hermit monk is St. Anthony the Hermit. There were other hermits before St. Anthony, but he outdid them all by living in the desert proper. He was really out there on his own. He wanted to follow Jesus more perfectly but he found it too difficult to remain sin free while hanging around other people.

Now think about this. What were these other people doing all the time that was so sinful that it would tempt him so much? Usury? Stealing? Being disrespectful to their parents? I think it's a little obvious what the problem could have been. So he removed the temptation altogether by living on his own in the middle of nowhere.

Unfortunately for him, a bunch of people followed him. But fortunately for him, they were all men and eventually they, and people like them, formed themselves into monasteries.

What was St. Simon Stilites really doing up on that pole? Why sit on top of a pole for years and years? Why keep getting a taller and taller pole? What's up with that?

Chastity, drove him up a pole. That's my theory.

If you wear a hair shirt, you really can only think about the hair shirt and offer up your suffering. It takes your mind off of things on which your mind might otherwise dwell. Hair shirts, tall poles, life on the desert. It's all about chastity.

That's my theory, anyhow.

I realize there is much more to it than that. Life on the desert gives one a lot of time to devote to God and prayer and meditation and contemplation. I get that.

I'm really liking your idea of St. Joseph, though. He needed a bit of angelic prodding, but he really came through in a big way.

Falling in the Fall

Sister Mary Martha where are you? I miss reading your blog. Are those 7th graders keeping you too busy?

Did I stop writing my blog? I thought I was still here. I guess I haven't been keeping up.

I can't blame the 7th graders. I blame the fall, which includes not only the 7th graders, but getting ready for winter in the garden and the house. Not that we have much of a winter, but we may get some rain and the roof leaks. Sister St. Aloysius used to be able to climb onto the wall and use the tree to get onto the roof and affix a tarp up there. The tarp blows off each year by late spring or tears to pieces in the wind, so we have to put a new one on each year. Now the tree is gone. I guess she'll have to stand on my shoulders or something. The tarp does keep us dry.

The really scary thing is that when the roof does leak in the kitchen, it leaks down through the light sockets. Yikes! We don't want to get zapped and think we see Mary in the refrigerator.

Which brings me to today's question:

Sister, you often have said that we are not required to believe in the private revelations of individuals. It has long bothered me that St Paul's vision on the road to Damascus was a private revelation and yet he is considered a father of the church, something like 13 of his epistles are in the bible. And yet, Paul never met Jesus in life, and was frequently at odds with the apostles *who were there with Jesus*. I think this is behind the protestant argument that Catholics are not Christians: so much of Catholic teaching is based on the teaching of Paul, rather than Jesus. It was private revelation!

I wouldn't worry about it. Jesus didn't say that much to Paul. Paul isn't telling us in his epistles things that Jesus said to him.

Remember what happened here. Paul was riding around persecuting the first Christians. He took part in martyring the first martyr, St. Stephen. St. Paul held the coats for the people who were stoning St. Stephen to death so they could have better range of motion for their stone throwing.

And then one day, according to Paul, Jesus knocked Paul off his horse and while Paul laid on the ground wondering what hit him, Jesus said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Paul's name used to be Saul.

Then Saul/Paul was blind for a bit and when he finally figured out what was going on and accepted Jesus, Paul/Saul got his sight back.

Unlike Fatima, or Lourdes or Sister Margaret Mary who had a vision of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and started that devotion, no instructions were given, no words of wisdom. Just a thump in the head from Jesus. A kick in the pants.

Jesus never even asked Saul to change his name to Paul. Paul had to learn and figure everything else out for himself, which he did, superbly. Jesus didn't reveal anything to Paul except Himself.

The Church Fathers saw fit to include Paul's letters and thoughts in the New Testament.

I think everyone has some kind of unformed thought that Jesus lived, died, rose and ascended and then four guys sat down and wrote about it and some people gathered up letters that the early disciples wrote and then we have the New Testament. As though somehow it was just there in a few years. Or that God got out His big gold pen and wrote a book and handed it to St. Peter.

But that's not what happened. The New Testament was not finished in the form in which we know it during St. Peter's life time. The New Testament didn't come together until the fourth century when the early church Fathers sat down and decided what would be in and what would be out, like Heidi Klum on Project Runway. Their choices were not frivolous. There was much arguing and debate. They were guided by God as the Church always is guided by God.

And that's the part you have to remember. Paul's writings are in the New Testament as guided by God. The Catholic Church is God's Big Gold Pen.

Here's something you might think about: I think this is behind the protestant argument that Catholics are not Christians: so much of Catholic teaching is based on the teaching of Paul, rather than Jesus.

Actually, the protestants base virtually all of their arguments on the teachings of St. Paul. Martin Luther certainly did.

So you can relax about St. Paul. He's my favorite patron saint for people who want to turn their lives around.

Ain't that a kick in the head?

A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall

What a terrible week! We're holding onto our habits for all the people who will be affected by the financial meltdown. I'm sure it will affect every single person in ways we haven't even guessed. I'm watching with consternation the transfer of power that is taking place as result. Am I the only person noticing this? I think we just became a socialist republic. Overnight. Oh well.

It's enough to drive us to drink. Happily for Catholics, we can drink. Drinking can be a sin, but it is not a sin in itself. It's one of those slippery slope sins. We've discussed the issue before.

Which brings me to today's question from a reader:

Dear Sister, do you know of a particular saint with whom one might ask for a little extra help with a loved one with problems in not being able to see how alcohol problems are usurping life? (Other than that of going straight to the source of strength, or BVM and her Motherliness?)

The BVM is no slouch. I wouldn't hesitate to contact her and ask her to pray for you.

But there is a patron saint for drinking. Technically, he's not a saint yet. He's venerable. That means he's waiting for a couple of miracles to be attributed to him. One miracle and he becomes Blessed. Two and he's a saint.

Venerable means that he lived a life of heroic virtue, and is worthy of our veneration.


I'm speaking of the Venerable Matt Talbot. He didn't start out leading a life of heroic virtue, or any other kind of virtue, as far as I can tell. Matt was a roaring drunk.

He lived in Ireland and he came from a large family of brothers. Nine, if memory serves. I'm sure everyone had a few suds on any given day, but Matt was in a class by himself. His sainted mother prayed for him. His friends shook their heads. He couldn't hold down a job.

As a result he eventually couldn't buy his own beer. He sold his shoes for a bottle of booze. He got people to buy drinks for him. Perhaps Matt was not a friendly happy drunk, because at some point, people refused to buy him even one more drink. He found himself standing outside of a bar, begging for someone to buy him a drink and when no one would, he had an epiphany.

He went home and told his sainted mother that he would not be drinking anymore ever again. His mother told him it would be very, very hard.

It was very, very hard. There was no AA back then. Matt had to figure things out for himself. He prayed a lot.

There are three things that stand out in my mind about the Venerable Matt Talbot.

The first is that, although he said that giving up drinking was enormously difficult, he often said that quitting smoking was much harder! It must be, because I've seen people leaving AA meetings, or taking a break during AA meetings, and they are all out there smoking like stacks. One addiction at a time, I guess.

The second is that Matt Talbot started a whole movement to help people with alcohol addiction. It has been very successful and there are Matt Talbot houses all over the world.

The third is my favorite. Matt Talbot was rewarded in this life with a happy death. He was walking down the street on his way to Mass and he fell over dead. I really think that's the best thing that can happen to you, deathwise. "Drop dead" is not really a bad thing to wish on someone. The alternatives are much worse. It's hard on the family, but for you, it's the easiest way as long you you are actually dead before you hit the ground so you don't hit you head really hard in the last moment of your life.

I hope this helps. No one is hopeless.

The Perfect Role Model

One of our readers asked what happened to our patron saint finder that I used to have on my sidebar. It was from the Aquinas Bookstore. I don't know what happened to it. I don't recall taking it off. Perhaps I did. I often don't recall what I did with things. Thank goodness St. Anthony is so very reliable.

Anyhow, I tried to put that patron saint finder back on and it just isn't working. I've contacted the Aquinas bookstore, but I haven't heard back from them yet. Patron saint for patience? We don't know, we can't find the saint finder.

I think all saints are the patron saints of patience (except maybe St. Peter), hence the term "the patience of a saint."

Dear Sister, Thank you so much for your blog! I love visiting here. Someone oughta give you a book contract -- the best writers always combine wit with their wisdom as you do. I have a simple question for you. One of those "please help me find just the right patron saint" questions. I run a blog for teens called No Question Left Behind. Actually, it started out as a book but that's a long story.

Anyway, I'd like put the blog under the patronage of a special saint but can't decide on who exactly. There are so many good saints for teens and also for apologetics. Here's what the blog is all about -- it's a question and answer format (which I know you can relate too!). I collected 200 questions from teens about the Church and about everyday teen life. Then I put together a team of teens and young-20s to answer the questions from a Catholic worldview. It's so much better for teens to hear answers from their peers than from old fogeys like me. (Though I should note that we do link to your blog as you are just way too cool.) We're continuing to take questions (the email addy is in the sidebar of the blog) so the blog should have a long future ahead.

The url is: www.noquestionleftbehind.blogspot.com I'd like to ask for prayers for the teens who send us questions, our readers, and the team members who answer the questions. Once the teens and I decide on a patron, we'll use the opportunity to promote devotion to our saint through the blog.

Sorry, it took me so long to get back to you on this. A saint popped right into my mind, so I wanted to think it over and make sure I wasn't just being lazy.

In the interest of not being lazy, I'll tell you my second choice first. St. Raphael, the patron saint of young people leaving home for the first time. The archangel Raphael had to run all over the place with Tobias, guiding him and protecting him and even helping him land a wife. That really seems like a perfect patron saint for your blog, doesn't it? Raphael is also the patron saint of young love, which I know from experience is high on the list of things teens think about.

And he's an angel, which makes him a wonderful personal guardian angel.

But he's not my first choice.

I'd go with St. Augustine because he really had some spiritual lockers that needed to be cleaned out. He jazzed around all over the place studying and promoting heresies while his sainted mother Monica (St. Monica, the patron saint of mothers of teens...that ought to tell you something right there) moaned and cried and wrung her hands and prayed back home.

St. Augustine is the patron saint of beer. He was a party animal, by his own accounts.

He was what is now commonly called a "baby daddy", meaning he had a child out of wedlock. He dumped that girl and took up with another, dumped her when he became engaged, and then took up with a new girl. ( He took up with the new girl after he became engaged to an underaged girl. He had the new girl while he was waiting for the underage girl to be old enough to marry.) Thus his famous prayer: "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."

Some prayer.

"Yet" finally arrived, though. His mother lived to see the day when he became a priest and then she dropped dead.

After all of that, St. Augustine is one of the most important saints of all time. He became a model of chastity and discipline. He founded the Augustinian Order. (Ironically, Martin Luther was an Augustinian!) He is a Doctor of the Church.

The whole point of a patron saint is finding a saint who maybe has had some of the same trials you have. I'll admit that some of them are a bit of a stretch. St. Sebastian is the patron saint of pin makers because he was shot full of arrows. I'm not making that up.

But St. Augustine...really, what didn't that guy do? Murder, I guess. Somehow he navigated his way through it all and came out a saint. Let's hope your teens do half as well.

Trick or Trash

Our readers have been sending in wonderful Halloween costume ideas:


I once wore a brown trash bag with "Hershey" in white letters taped to it and had an aluminum foil hershey's kiss twisted hat. It was quick, inexpensive and required no sewing!

Great idea! I suggested to Sister St. Aloysius that she dress the children as trash. Just cut arm and leg holes in a trash bag and tie the bag up around the neck with the head sticking out. Stuff the bag with old newspapers. You could make a milk carton hat!

She does not care for the idea of dressing children as trash. I think everyone is too sensitive these days.

Meanwhile our Nun So Beautiful Non Contest is going very well. And thanks to Sheila for the wonderful name!

Hi, Sister! I'm definitely going to submit photos for this contest. I just wanted to warn you that you'll probably want to write the e-mail address on your blog post a little differently; spammers troll websites and blogs looking for e-mail addresses and then flood them with junk.

You mean there isn't a guy in Kenya who needs me to hold his money for him so he needs my bank account number? Uh-oh. I was hoping to use the money to buy a really cheap Rolex. Another dream dashed. It would have all worked out because so many people have emailed about debt relief.

I can't wait to see some photos! Sister who is a Saint for financial help?

The Infant of Prague.

You may have noticed that our poll results have our contest ending (by one vote!) on September 30th. At least many people were willing to admit that they are lazy procrastinators.

I am a lazy procrastinator, how did you know? Is it a sin to procrastinate? I've always wondered.

Procrastination is one of those murky areas, sin-wise. It falls into the bad habit category. Bad habits are not sins. Unless they become sins. For example, you can smoke. It's a stupid bad stinky habit, but it doesn't make the sin list. But if you smoke like the Little Engine That Could finally making it to the top of the emphysima hill, you've probably crossed the line into ruining the wonderful body God gave you. Gambling is not a sin. Gambling until you lose your house is a sin. (Somebody tell Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Who are they? Do they know each other? Doesn't one of them make great candy?)

At the point where you've put off cleaning your house so long you can't find the baby, maybe you've crossed the line.

On the other hand, don't confuse procrastination with prioritizing.

What if you're sitting around sending me nun pictures when you should be trying to find the baby? That isn't good. By the way, if you've dressed the baby like a bag of trash, he will be even harder to find in your messy house.

Laziness, on the other hand, is always a sin. It's right on the Big List, better known as the Seven Deadly Sins. Sloth.

Ring a bell?

But don't confuse prioritizing with laziness. There are only so many hours in a day. Though it's never mentioned in the New Testament, I'm pretty sure Jesus slept. He was probably like Thomas Edison, though, and didn't sleep much.

Thomas Edison only slept for an hour or two every so often and even then he just laid on a table in the workroom or something. I envy him.

Envy is a sin.

Cutting Table

Our yearly dilemma, the sewing of Halloween costumes, is sniffing at our heels. Here's the actual dilemma. Sister St. Aloysius actually loves to sew (although you'd never know that from the sounds that come from the actual sewing area). She doesn't really mind making Halloween costumes. On the other hand, the whole thing can become quite overwhelming ,so she isn't really inclined to stick up a sign on the porch that says, "Need a costume? Just knock!"

However, people who need costumes don't really think about what they might need to do to procure one this soon. The fabric store moratorium begins Oct. 1.

And on top of that, little kids who need costumes, who are the most fun to work for anyhow, will change their little minds four hundred times between now and the night before Halloween.

I have made the suggestion that Sister St. Aloysius gather all her fabric scraps and just make a list of costumes she can make available. "Ghost" will be at the top of the list because we have lots of old linen and pillow cases.

She thinks ghost costumes are dangerous because the kid can't see out of the eyeholes and will get hit by a car. I say children are overprotected these days. Who lets their kid trick or treat alone these days anyhow? Those kids don't have to see anything but their candy bag and the door bell.

We could make halos for the ghosts and they could be very generic saints.

I'll admit, I'm squirming. I always end up in the middle of the Halloween costume debacle. Last year was relatively peaceful, even though I had to creep around in that creepy store looking for baby rick rack.



I know! We'll dye all the linens black and everyone can go as nuns! Then we'll take their pictures and enter them in the Nun So Beautiful Non Contest. Even the boys.

A reader suggested that as a title: Nun So Beautiful. Great, huh? nunworld@yahoo.com

Brother Martin

I'm glad we've been thinking about how beautiful everyone is! My goodness, isn't that what Jesus was trying to tell us? I think it is.

Take a deep breath. Here's today's question:


Someone who wears her St. Dymphna medal all the time said...

Sister, I am in need of advice.
I was somewhat recently (about a year and three months ago) diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 2 (that is, with less severe mania) and while drugs and therapy have helped me out a lot I find that I cannot understand how to go on with the rest of my life.

Everyone of us lives with the possibility that our life will fall apart, from unforeseen disease, economic or environmental catstrophe or an accident. Because I know that there is no way to know which of these or whether any of these will affect my life, I do not worry about them unduly and take reasonable precautions. However, I know that my life will fall apart again at least one more time (and probably more) because of the bipolar disorder. It would be extremely unrealistic to expect anything else.

I have already gone through the plunge into depression and the slow crawl back up to normalcy and reliability several times and I am still in my mid-twenties. I never worried about how it would affect my life in the future before being diagnosed as bipolar because I had always been diagnosed as having major (unipolar) depression, an illness that one has good chances of eventually overcoming and much better chances of keeping under reasonable control. Thus, I thought that at some point it would leave my life. I had even had a few years in a row without a major episode of depression and had come to think that it had, indeed, gone from me.

But bipolar disorder never goes away and now that I know that I am stuck with it for the rest of my life (and I am sure that this is the correct diagnosis) I don't know how to carry on. I feel as though I have no hope of a future, that I will be forever mired in work for which I am not suited but which will be the only kind I can get with such a spotty work history. I have been rejected romantically specifically because of this disease more than once, although this does not bother me too much. It just feels as though all the gifts and talents that God has given me are being cancelled out, negated and smothered by this disease. I don't feel that I can ever be of good use to anyone. This is compounded by the fact that many people who would take a heart attack or diabetes seriously and with sympathy and concern recoil with disgust and ill-will from someone suffering from the extremes of mental illness.

It is a great relief to know the nature of my illness but knowing that nature I find I am stuck and no longer know how to put one foot in front of the other, or how to hope.

It is easy to say snap out of it, everyone has stumbling blocks (and they do) but I am genuinely lost, even if it is only my own stupidity and unknowing that are the cause of it. I cannot find my place in God's world, I do not know how to be of use and I'm scared. What should I do to try to figure this out?

I won't be able to figure it out. Unlike Dr. Laura, I know when I'm in over my head.

So I marched my giant shoes down to the rectory to talk to Brother Martin. Brother Martin works there at the rectory doing whatever needs to be done on any given day. Some days he's not there. He actually is there. He lives there. Some days he just can't do much of anything.

He has the same diagnosis that you do. Bipolar disorder type 2. I asked him how he copes. He explained to me how his anxiety can begin a downward spiral at the drop of a hat.

I told him I've always admired how he soldiers on, given what he has to surmount, sometimes just to get through breakfast.

I told him that I believe that courage is what we call it when we are afraid, but continue on anyhow. A person can't be called brave if he isn't afraid. Brother Martin seems very brave to me. What makes him so brave?

Brother Martin said that all he can do is his best with what God has given him that day. Sometimes just getting out of bed and eating a bowl of soup is his best. Some days he paints the entire rectory and the gazebo.

He wanted you to know that it's important not to be so hard on yourself when God doesn't give you so much on some days. Just concentrate on what God has given you today, not what he's going to give you, or not going to give you, tomorrow. And do your best with it, whatever it is.

I don't think Brother Martin realized that he is showing anyone how to be brave, or what it really means to believe that God loves you, but he is doing just that. He is fulfilling his mission as a Brother, just by coping with his illness.

I hope this helps you in some small way.

The Quality of Mercy

Maybe I should have gone for the cloister. Oh, for the cell and the silence!

It's that time of year when we have to gear up to fund raise for the school, the church, the convent, the retired nuns, the poor, the homeless. I'm sure we'll be having some flood victims any second.

I don't mind telling you it's out of my 'comfort zone'. Not because I have to run around begging for money, but because somewhere in there, in order to hang onto the money we have or to wrangle more money out of people for worthy causes, sometimes I have to be cute.

I never go straight for cute. I really can't abide the whole 'cute nun' thing. Sometimes cuteness is thrust upon me.

I will confess to you, that being a nun has gotten me off the hook financially more than once. No one likes to take money from a nun. Once, as a nun, one realizes this, it becomes very difficult not to 'work' it. It's not like I'm batting my eyelashes and twirling my hair. I can't get to my hair to twirl it anyhow.

It's ever so slightly more subtle. The officer pulls the nun over for rolling through the stop sign rather than coming to a full stop. The nun is rattled. No one likes to be pulled over. The nun can't really afford to pay a moving violation ticket. The officer doesn't realize the perp is a nun until he is up to her car window. The nun can see he's suddenly rattled.

Rattled nun + rattled cop = off with a warning. If the nun says, "Bless you, officer" at the end, the officer leaves feeling aglow.

The nun wonders whether or not she 'worked it'.

Nuns and clergy solicit help in this way all the time. I'm sure you've been on the receiving end of it. Remember that movie "Lilies of the Field"? That nun quietly manipulates that poor man into building an entire church. If that nun didn't 'work' it, there would be no movie. Or church.

Is that a bad thing? I guess not. I'm not comfortable with it. The question remains how far do we go?

Hi, sister! I absolutely adore your blog and have to tell everyone about it (usually two or three times)! I have a question for you that I feel would be very apt considering your vows. How much is too much to have in the eyes of God? I mean, I'm a middle class American, with all the trimmings that go with; I cannot stand the thought of starving children, homeless people, and other worthy causes worldwide, and although I do give to solicitors in the mail and at church, I can't help but feel that God is still very upset with me, with all of us, for not doing more. Is it okay to be living a comfortable life while people are dying? And yet I don't feel there's much I can do, as those people aren't actually within my direct reach. What do you feel we should be doing? The spiritual and corporal words of mercy spell it out fairly well, but to what practical extent? My husband feels that with a family of 8, we can't do anything drastic and St. Francis-like, which I agree with; however I do feel that something's missing. No one obviously needs so many things as we have, and interestingly, usually all of our belongings only serve to clutter up our lives and take time to clean! Any thoughts? Thank you for your inspiring and hilarious blog- I look forward to it daily! God Bless you! -Martha Mary (seriously).

I can tell you one thing. If you collect something, stop. Once people know you collect something, that's what you'll get as gifts and that's a big help to people shopping for you.

It's not an easy question. No easy answer. Your children have to be fed and educated. You have to stay healthy.

Here's what you're missing, I think, a little. It isn't always about money. You're not talking about finances, really. You're talking about mercy.

Mercy is free. The Corporal Works of Mercy are called the Corporal WORKS of Mercy, not the Corporal Bucks of Mercy. Drag out that list and make it a check list of what you need to do this week. You can leave 'bury the dead' off, unless your cat killed a bird or something. Then again, you could see who is being buried in your parish this week and go help out with the luncheon or sing in the choir or usher or something.

People do need help within your reach.

I'm sure our reader will have lots to say about this.

Don't forget to send in those nun pictures! nunworld@yahoo.com


Meanwhile, the tree man has just finished fixing our window. I have to run out and pay him. Maybe if I bat my eyelashes he'll knock a couple of bucks off his price. Probably not. I'll just look like a blinking bloodhound.

Dumb Nun

I am so excited! I have just heard from one of my favorite authors! If I was living in a fantasy world, I would entertain myself with the idea that one of my favorite authors actually reads my little essays.

I'm sure what actually happened is that Kevin Orlin Johnson got a "Google Alert" that his name was mentioned and he came here to read what I had to say and was horrified.

Uh-oh. The nun strikes again!

This is Kevin Orlin Johnson, author of Rosary: Mysteries, Meditations, and the Telling of the Beads. No such passage occurs in my book, to the best of my knowledge! Please either cite the page number or remove this false reference! Thanks!

I hope Mr. Johnson will accept my swooning apology. He's referring to yesterday's post about the term "Knock Wood" coming from the persecution of Irish Catholics. I thought I had read it in his book.

That book, "Rosary: Mysteries, Meditations, and the Telling of the Beads" is just the best book you can read about the rosary. It's informative and inspiring. It is a truly wonderful guide to meditating on the mysteries of the rosary, in down to earth very human terms. He really gets across the whole idea of the rosary: a look at the life of Jesus through the eyes of His Mother.



Once when I was traveling by plane, I was seated next to a woman who was praying the rosary because she was afraid of flying. I really think she felt as though if she put her rosary down the plane would crash. I was glad she was saying the rosary, but I felt sorry for her being so scared, so I started talking to her about this book. I happened to have it on me, and that's how I ended up giving away the first copy I had. I had it right in my bag there to give to her. Well...not right in my bag. It was in the overhead bin and I had to trouble everyone to wrestle it out.

I bought another copy, because I wanted to have the book as a reference. He has in there a fabulous history of the "Hail Mary". I wanted to read it over and over.

OR maybe he didn't have that in there....Lord have mercy.

Anyhow, I gave that copy away, too, so I can't check. That copy went to one of our 'separated brethren', one of those people who just has to go on and on about Catholics 'worshiping' Mary and statues and all of that craziness that makes me so tired. I threw the book at him.

I didn't throw it. But the book had quite an effect on him, because he's since only asked sensible questions.

Good work Kevin Orlin Johnson!

The question remains. Where did I read that story? I'm going out on a limb here. I think it must have been in "A Concise History of the Catholic Church" by Thomas Bokenkotter. That's a great book, too. I was reading it around the same time I originally read the rosary book, so maybe that's why I was confused.



Or maybe I'm simply a confused old....is there a female word for 'codger'?

Knock Wood Over

We've had a scary couple of days. We had to have a tree removed. The tree was in a tiny walkway on the side of the house with our windows and the neighbor's windows all around. It was a giant rubber tree, which always sort of made me laugh from my years in the Midwest where people have a little rubber plant on their desk and struggle to keep it alive. Ours was a full two stories high and growing.

I can't tell you how may times we've attempted to cut this tree down. It grew back bigger every time, just like when the Mexican women shave their baby sons' heads so they'll have thick hair. It was weighing on the roof and knocking over the wall.

I had to have a talk with Jose, who came with another man to cut it down, about the proximity of all the windows. I forgot to mention the roof. Jose parked his truck in the front of the house and dragged tree parts across the roof and threw them off the roof and into his truck. Our roof can't really bear the weight of Jose and his friend and tree parts. I could stand in the hallway and watch the roof bend with each step. I made Jose promise to walk along the wall seams. And to watch out for all the windows. Eventually the whole shebang was so scary, we took Sister Mary Fiacre and the three of us stood cowering outside on the deck, pretending we didn't hear the cracking, crunching, thumping and chain saws. Not a good day for contemplative prayer.

Jose was very nice, though. He's coming back Monday to fix the window. He had gotten all the way through the job with the last of the stump flipped over as they were picking it up to remove it and bashed in the window.

I should have knocked wood:

Sister, Could you elaborate on the "knock wood" tradition coming from the rosary? Never heard that before, and love those kinds of stories!


I could elaborate on that, but I would probably be wrong. Again.

I had read in a book that I like very much, The Rosary, by Kevin Orlin Johnson, that the term "knock wood" came about during the English persecution of the Irish Catholics. The Irish had to hide everything. Practicing Catholicism was illegal, priests were hauled off and killed.

FOOTNOTE: I READ THIS SOMEWHERE, BUT IT IS NOT IN KEVIN ORLIN JOHNSON'S BOOK. SEE SEPT. 6 POST!

So people hid to practice Catholic devotions. If someone was coming and there was danger of being caught the faithful would rattle their rosaries as a warning sound. There you have it. "Knocking wood" actually caused good 'luck'.

As I said, this information was in one of my favorite books. I can't think that it had a footnote as to where the author came up with this information. I can't go look at the book because if I have a copy, I always give it away. I can't find any reference to Irish Catholics rattling their rosaries anywhere else.

It's a great story, isn't it?


Although, I did find a source that said knocking on wood for luck had something to do with some ancient game of tag (with a tree as 'home base'),many sources at least agree that knocking wood has something to do with being Catholic. The tradition dates all the way back to the Emperor Constantine (who made it illegal to be pagan), lover of the Cross that he was. People would touch or tap the Cross as it made its way through processions.



I also found this:
A Jewish version traces the origin to the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th century. At the time, persecuted Jews fled to synagogues built of wood, and they devised a coded knock to gain admission. Since this practice spared countless lives, it became common to "knock on wood" for good luck.

Unpleasant. Happily, Pope John Paul II apologized for the Inquisition a while back.