Loud Quiet

Since you mention questions can be asked in the comments section, I have a question I need to ask, please. I teach faith formation in our church, and the kids in my class are getting confirmed this year. We were talking about patron saints, and suggested that the kids choose someone that they have an affinity with -- maybe a saint shares their weaknesses or strengths or interests. One girl asked me for suggestions for a patron saint of shyness. Searching on the internet I found references to St. Dymphna, but I'm not sure I want to recommend her. It seems like a lot of the saints lived quiet, holy lives. Can you recommend someone nice for this nice little girl? Thank you for your wonderful blog.

You're welcome. And thank you for the wonderful work you do!

No, poor St. Dymphna and her crazy father is not the way to go for shyness.

St. Rosalia springs to mind. She went off to live an cave. Apparently no one gave her another thought. She moved from her original cave to another cave. Still no one came by for a visit. She wanted to be away from everyone, so it worked out well for her. No one noticed when the years passed and no one heard from her. Gone and forgotten.

At some point, the new cave caved in on her and that was that. No one knew. Until years later some men were excavating her last cave and found her remains. "Oh yeah," they finally said, "this is that Rosalia who went off to live in a cave. We forgot about her."  They took her remains back to town. The town was suffering from a terrible plague and when Rosalia finally came home, she cured everyone.

Perhaps this isn't a great story for an eighth grade girl who is shy.

How about St. Therese, the Little Flower? We think of her as this great saint. We know everything about her. We have her hair in a glass case and all her things from before she was a nun. She is a Doctor of the Church. Only three women hold that title and all three were declared Doctors of the Church only in recent years. Her book, "The Story of a Soul" sealed that deal.

But the truth is, when little Therese died at age 24, the nuns fretted because they couldn't think of anything to say about her. It's a little embarrassing when you can't think of a eulogy.

"She washed the dishes well." The end. Let's eat.

She had lived a life of quiet prayer and contemplation, completely undistinguished. She is the patron saint of missionaries because she wanted to be one. She never went anywhere in her life. She is also the patron saint of airline pilots. I think that was supposed to be a little joke.

But she left behind the story of what it means to be in harmony with God. Very big stuff.

And she was cute as a button.

An Angel Gets a Moustache

Marion T I agree with you. The way our prayers are answered, the way our angel protects us is not always the same as we would desire. When one hears a distinct voice commanding one to RUN HOME, just in time to prevent a fire from consuming one's house, where did that come from? I rather think it's from a benevolent presence and not simply one's imagination. Father Barron speculates, in the Catholicism series, that each angel is its own species and that makes the most sense to me. I cringe whenever I hear from a Catholic who should know better, "Well, dear old Auntie Meg is now an angel in Heaven, watching over us!" when old Auntie Meg has shuffled off her mortal coil. Charity would compel me to eventually straighten her out on that notion but I'm a coward and don't know how to avoid hurt feelings there. Any suggestions?

There has been a suggestion or two in the comments section (which is also the place to leave questions, by the way).  I'll add my two cents.

It depends on the circumstance and the person. You wouldn't want to say anything that might embarrass the speaker of the misinformation if you were in a group of people, calling her out as a dumb bunny. You could say something very simple, like, "Oh I hope she is watching over us in Heaven! That means she's a saint! Everyone who is dead and in Heaven is a saint."

At least it doesn't sound like we're lowering Auntie Meg's pay grade.

I, too, cringe at such comments, but I can generally get away with a mild reminder (based on my get up) that Auntie Meg is a saint in Heaven, not an angel. I might even go so far as to mention that angels are a separate entity from human beings.

I tend not to do that, though.  For one thing, these things are generally said at funerals and wakes, when people already have enough to think about.  I might pipe up if it comes up in a regular old conversation, not at a mourning fest.

And even then....not so much. It really depends on the circumstances. I pick my battles, as they say. And sometimes, you just know your thoughts fall on deaf ears.

My mother is one of those people who insist, along with countless others, that if you shave the hair off anyplace on your body, it will grow back darker and thicker. I've listened to her admonish young people never to "start shaving" and tell the story about how Aunt Char's sister shaved her face and ended up with a thick black beard.

Maybe that's actually what happened to St. Wilgefortis.

The truth is Aunt Char's sister probably shaved her face because she already had a thick black beard. If shaving caused hair to grow back thicker and darker there would be no bald men or women and no men with scraggly beards.

After hearing her say it again recently, I did a little research. A lot of people believe this myth. Maybe I'm the one who is wrong? Maybe when women shave, their hair grows back darker and thicker?

The doctors at Mayo Clinic beg to differ, as does every single other person who knows anything about hair, shaving and hair growth.

But I'm not going to mention this to my mother, because she will tell me they're wrong and I'm wrong because she saw what happened to Aunt Char's sister. Which isn't even empirical proof, although I'm sure I could never convince her of that, either.

I imagine that people who want to believe that Auntie Meg is an angel in Heaven will continue to do so, no matter what you say to them. It's not the worse thing you could get wrong, theologically speaking.

Angels Don't Need Wings

I knew my post the other day would yield a guardian angel story or two. I was not disappointed. This one was my favorite:
My mom insists that she was protected by her guardian angel when she was a kid growing up in Louisiana. She was picking blackberries and as she reached up, she got pushed backwards really hard and fell onto the ground. She looked up into the bush and there was a huge snake on the branch. She swears up and down she never saw it or heard it and no one was around her. 

Score one for the guardian angel! And I guess for your mom, as well. Paving the way for our next comment.

Sister St. Aloysius is too narrow in her intellectual view of the role of Guardian Angels. If saints who are earth bound can bi locate, who is to say that angels cannot? I see nothing contradictory in my Guardian Angel eternally adoring the face of the Father and simultaneously protecting me from temptations and errant buses.

Neither do I. I think perhaps I didn't explain very well. I believe I more or less said this if you re- read. I must have confused you with my last comment about invisible winged creatures protecting us from getting hit by a bus.

As the risk of confusing everyone further, I must admit that I am sometimes baffled when watching some poor jamoke on the news, covered in bandages from head to toe, after being accidentally shot out of a cannon they crawled in to inspect, saying something along the lines of, "My Guardian Angel sure was looking after me!"

I know. They mean they shouldn't have survived. But I can't help but think, "Where was your Guardian Angel when you crawled in there?"

Maybe I am more of a "glass half empty" person than I care to admit.

The thing that intrigued me about Sister St. Aloysius' comment was that it took the burden off guardian angels to stop people from showing up on "Dumbest Home Videos" and onto the true job of your guardian angels, the protection of your soul. I didn't mean to imply that they can't or don't do both, although I certain ended up implying just that.

Perhaps my real point in talking about it at all is to dispel the notion of big winged creatures, as angels don't have feathers, I'll wager. They aren't former people who earn feathers in Heaven. They are an entities with free will and that's where the similarity between angels and us ends. Did you know that the Church frowns on the notion of naming your Guardian Angels? Yep.  That's to pull you back from thinking about them as winged people from Heaven that you get to call by name. You don't know their names and unless you have a mystical vision, you never will. They are not to be "PERSONified".

I admit that I bristle sometimes at the notions people have. The other day I was walking to the Post Office along a very narrow sidewalk that stretches for blocks on end all along the marina here. It's a beautiful walk with all the boats in the harbor on one side and a bike path on the other.  But for a long stretch it's a narrow sidewalk right next to two lanes of on coming traffic and a big curve in the road. I can't tell you how many times I've walked it, and every single time I worry that one false move by any driver, distracted by a phone call or text, or the guy in the next lane crossing his lane line and the driver next to me swerving just slightly to miss him and I'm mowed down like a corn stalk in the fall.

So imagine my shock when, returning from the Post Office that fine day, just where I had been walking, a car had done just that. Jumped the curb and come to rest a little sideways in a giant hedge. Anyone walking there at that moment would have been toast. A woman with a baby in a carriage had just done what I had, and we stood looking at the car and the ambulance and the fire truck agape.

If our Guardian Angels were indeed watching out for us, what about those people in the car?

The hedge, I guess. The glass is half full.

Last Week In Heaven

Somehow our house has become a black hole for the internet! I've had to visit with you from school and I don't have time for that. Forgive me for my neglect and some big neglect it has been.

This has been a great week in saints.

Which reminds me, there is a raging argument here on the blog on the "That's the Queen of Heaven, Just Ignore Her" post, which is a very good read if you have a cup of coffee at your elbow and children who don't bother you when you get on the phone or the internet. Some of you have at least one of those things going on, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, back to last week.  Not only did we kick off the week with Archangels, we also honored our Guardian Angels and everyone's favorite garden statue saint, St. Francis of Assisi. I've waxed poetic about St. Francis before, in particular bemoaning his place in history as the patron saint of birds and squirrels and his place in our minds as a bird bath holder.  He had a lot more going on than that.  I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads up for his feast day.

But a couple of days before Francis, we had the feast of our Guardian Angels. I recently was shocked to hear a nun telling someone that the notion of Guardian Angels was just some sort of a Catholic fairy tale for children. I had to grab her and push her under the stairwell and shake my bony crooked finger in her face. And I thought nuns were better educated these days! I had  hoped that nuns weren't wrong nearly as much as they used to be.

The whole incident triggered quite a discussion between me and Sister St. Aloysius. Ever the intellectual, she had a take on Guardian Angels that was new to me, that frankly made a lot of sense. She always makes a lot of sense, even when she's standing out there in left field. When the ball comes to her, she is always ready.

I always thought of Guardian Angels as an angel companion that was ever at our sides, like the prayer "ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide."   But she sees them more as an advocate, every person's personal advocate, in Heaven, but AND by one's side.  It certainly is a more 'adult' view than our rather childish image of a giant invisible winged creature.

She has drawn her conclusions, the separated brethren will be pleased to know, from this passage from Matthew (18:10):  "See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven."

Our Guardian Angels aren't standing by snatching us back from being hit by buses or kissing scraped knees. They are advocates for our souls and only our souls. They work on us through our senses and our imaginations but never on our wills, except by working through our intellects.  And they are with us for eternity, even after we make it to Heaven.  Like retirees at the Knights of Columbus lodge.

Perhaps my mistaken acquaintance confused the idea that angels work through our imaginations with actually being imaginary. Perhaps she had had little sleep and her mind had drifted into a pleasant fantasy of dozing in the arms of a sweet messenger of God while she half listened to a lecture on St. Thomas Aquinas' thoughts on angels and how they protect our souls. And then, while her lids drooped, she wondered why her angel hadn't stopped her when she was 8 from riding her bike down a bumpy hill that was much too steep, with her feet off the pedals and her pigtails flying, until she was going so fast she couldn't stop and broke her arm.

Perhaps he did stop her. From breaking her head.  She's a nun now, so he's doing a great job.

Take it to the (River) Bank

This has been a great couple of days for Heaven. Yesterday was Angel Day. Not that that's what it is really called. It was the feast day of Gabriel, Michael and Raphael, three archangels who "stand before God". Somebody asked me once if there were any girl angels. (Keep in mind that angels are not dead people, they are a whole separate entity.)  I don't think there are any boy angels. I don't think angels are either girls or boys. I realize that in the Bible when they show up they are mentioned as "three young men" and the like.  But the truth is that they could not have manifested as women, roaming around by themselves in those times, let alone that if they had, no one would have paid any attention to them. We really have come a long way, baby. Sure they have boy names, but what of it?  We were thinking of them as boys.  What were we supposed to call them?  "Pat", "Chris" and "Vivian"? In any case, it was their feast day yesterday.

And today is the feast day of one of our very favorite saints, St. Therese the Little Flower. I was amazed to read today that she was only made a Doctor of the Church in 1997. It seems so long ago, I thought it had to have been 1954 or so.Time stops while it flies, one of life's ironies.

We love St. Therese, who I think of as the patron saint for people who are annoyed by the annoying habits of others.  Therese knew the value of offering up suffering for the Poor Souls in Purgatory and there was plenty of suffering for Therese in a cloistered convent with all those women doing nothing but menial tasks and praying.  She didn't want to miss any suffering so she wrote down every annoyance that she bore so it could count for something.  On her deathbed she mentioned that she'd like to spend her Heaven doing good on Earth, so you might consider her a friend when you'd like someone to pray for you.

And speaking of saints' days, here a a question from a reader regarding good old St. Christopher.

I would love for you to explain to me in lay terms why Pope Paul VI removed his saint day from the calendar. Also, I am happy to learn that he is also the patron saint of athletes as well as travelers. I will never leave on a trip without my medal around my neck.

I've explained it before, but people really hate hearing it. It was because the story of St. Christopher, when told fully, is rather obviously a myth. It is precisely because of stories like that of St. Christopher that the Church began a more thorough vetting of candidates for sainthood. At one point a dog almost got in.

The full story of Christopher is that he was some sort of large soldier type. He wanted to serve whomever was the most powerful person. So he was fighting for some king and the king lost to the devil. Christopher left the king and started fighting for the devil until he saw the devil bow down to the Cross.  An old hermit told Christopher that the way to follow Christ was to humbly serve mankind. The hermit put Christopher (a name that means "Christ bearer", which means his name must have been something else before the famous "incident") in charge of ferrying people across a river on his shoulders.

Then comes the part where Christopher is carrying a small boy who grows ever heavier on the way across. Christopher can hardly get to the other side and when he does he asks the boy, "How come you're so heavy?" And the boy replies, "I am the Christ Child and I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders."

I think it's kind of a silly story. The whole beginning has a "Three Pigs", "Three Billy Goats"  feel to it.  The only part I like is the part where the hermit tells Christopher the best way to follow Christ. You can take that to the bank.

A bunch of saints were quietly taken off the calendar. The fourteen Holy Helpers went, too, for much the same reasons. But no one minds if you wear your St. Christopher medal. I'm sure there was a holy man out there somewhere, very possibly doing nothing but helping people across a river, serving Chris,t like St. Therese, in the most humble way. And he certainly carried the Christ Child across that river because as He would have told you, "Whatever you do to the least of My brothers, that you also do unto Me."

God's Point of View

What about any tips on forgiving and loving our enemies, especially family members that harm us maybe even in a criminal way eg. outrage of modesty? Thanks!

A little, although I think it is extremely difficult to get our heads around it all. There is a name for people who successfully navigate the waters of forgiving the unforgivable: saints.

The first bit of confusion lies in the idea that when we forgive someone it somehow means we okay with their transgression.  Often accomplish this very simple form of forgiveness and we do employ it all the time when someone forgets our birthday or shows up two hours later for the Thanksgiving dinner with their contribution to the feast, the appetizer. The type of person who hangs onto these petty grievances is a sad soul indeed.

These are the moments when the phrase "love conquers all" seems to be true.

God's love conquers all. Ours is often found wanting.

The key word to your question is "enemies". Forgiveness is a very different task when we're no longer talking about the snippy remark your sister made about your new shoes or that person who shot into the parking space you spotted after they just pulling into the lot you've been circling for 20 minutes. An enemy is someone who is actively trying to harm you.

Do we have to forgive them? I sorry to tell you, yes.  In fact, Jesus went a step further and said we have to love them.

To be honest, I find it easier to love them than to forgive them.  I, too, get hung up in the barbed wire fence of forgiveness implying that I'm okay with the horror they're perpetrating. As far as I can tell, I have to forgive them over and over again.

Which sounds awful, until I imagine God saying to us all, "Welcome to my life."

The only way I've been able to keep my head above water in the forgiveness department is to try to see the person as God must see them. His beautiful child, his wonderful creation, all bent and twisted and run over by a bus. To try to have compassion for the tortured soul so removed from harmony with God's love.

I must add that if someone is doing you harm, or trying to do you harm, you don't have to forgive them from four feet away or sitting in a car with them. You can do it in another state or from across town (if the town is big enough to provide you a safe distance).

The first hermits were people who felt they could not connect with God strongly enough while hanging around with other human beings and so moved farther and farther away from people.  Some found it too difficult to live that austere lifet without the encouragement of other people who were also trying to do it and that's how monasteries were formed.  But I digress.

I just bring up the monks to point out that they went to extremes to keep their own souls safe and you must do the same. Like when you're a  plane and they tell you to make sure you have your own oxygen mask on first before you pass out trying to put one on someone else.

The only other encouragement I can give you is to tell you that forgiving and being forgiven has more power than just about anything else I can think of.

Forgive me for the dangling participle.

I'll Get Around To It

Hi Sister I am a terrible procrastinator (actually no, I am a great procrastinator – but it is terrible!), in fact it has taken me weeks to get around to asking you for help! Everyone says just get started, or just set yourself a deadline which is easy for the non-procrastinator to say, but I am out of control! Do you have any suggestions for getting some discipline in my life? Many thanks! Sara 

I haven't been procrastinating in answering. I have had one computer related problem after another. Practically by the hour.  Even the eighth grade boys have been flummoxed.  I actually can't believe I finally am able to post. It seems like a miracle.

It is not a miracle. Miracles are spontaneous and unexplained. I don't know what the explanation is that things are suddenly working when for days they have not been working, but I'm sure there is one (who is probably called "Sister Mary Martha").  And the road back has been anything but spontaneous.

To your question: First off, of course we have a patron saint for procrastinators.  St. Expeditus.  Although, truth be told, poor Expeditus has little to do with procrastination, and his patronage of foot draggers, like St. Luke and his paintings, is giantly dubious.  If it weren't for the Church proclaiming him a saint, I'd go so far as to say his very sainthood is questionable.

It seems some nuns got their hands on a box of bones that they thought said, "St. Expeditus", when in fact the box said something that actually translates more along the lines of  "Priority Mail".  It's as though they got a box that said "Fragile" in a language they didn't understand and thought it said "St. Frageelly."  Nonetheless, St. Expeditus is the patron saint of the time challenged and postal workers.

And of course, Fed-Ex.

I do have suggestions.  Start by asking yourself some questions. Why aren't you doing what you need to do?  Is it tough to face? Even something like paying bills can be tough to face as you watch your hard earned money fly out the door. Jesus said, "Take no purse" on you path to follow Him. So grab a pen and smile.

Or is it just that you would rather watch "Real Housewives of AnyWhere" than do what you're supposed to do? What is it you're supposed to do, anyhow?  Clean the house? Take the dog for his shots? Call your mom?

Or is it that you can't make a choice about what to do next, so you do nothing? Like when you go to one of those restaurants with a six page menu and you can't decide what to have and finally, when the waitress comes, you panic and order a tuna melt and feel bad because it's not at all what you wanted.  This is easy to resolve. Choose.  Just one thing. It opens the door for the rest.  If someone says to you, "Oh, look, they serve breakfast all day" you suddenly realize you can have a blintz! If you decide you want something hot, you can skip the sandwich page!

Here is your conundrum. You need discipline in your life. In order to have discipline in your life you have to have some discipline.

Uh-oh.

I suggest you make a "to-do" list.  Prioritize it in the order in which it needs to get done. Do as much of it as you can every day, even if it is just one thing, but if you are going slowing and only doing one thing, then you'll have to add to the bottom of the list (or the top) as new tasks arrive.  If it takes you all week to clean the bathroom, the kitchen will need work by then.

Try to keep moving.  If you can get yourself going, you'll soon find you feel so much better about getting things done than you do having watched "Play Date" on the Lifetime Channel that your own sense of accomplishment will motivate you.

But you do need discipline, and only you can muster that.  For that I recommend St. John of God, who could never settle on anything until he literally drove himself crazy. Once he finally made a choice he was a human dynamo.

Tell Me a Story

I love this blog :D I have a question as well--I work as a story person (writer & story artist) and I'm trying to pull together blogs that have the basic principles in their storywork of creation, learning, & teaching. I'd like to draw an illustration for blog sidebars in a "Secret of Kells" style. Is there a patron saint you would recommend that's very story & creation-centric to draw? (I hope this question isn't dumb)

No patron saint question is too dumb.  I was once asked who was the patron saint for tennis elbow. I can't remember what I came up with.  There's always the trusty fallback of St. Christopher, patron saint of athletes.

I digress.

The patron saint of artists is St. Luke. Frankly, I have always found this a bit lame, as they say.  St. Luke is the patron saint of artists because he supposedly painted a portrait  or two of Our Lady. There is no evidence of this or that St. Luke ever so much as picked up a pack of colored pencils.

He's always depicted with his easel and oils. I don't think oils were invented yet. I don't know much about art history. I'll have to look that up. Certainly people painted things with something. Not colored pencils.

But St. Luke is still a grand patron saint for you because he wrote not only the Gospel of Luke, but the Acts of the Apostles. He palled around with St. Paul and other disciples and apostles and Mary and he gathered their stories.

His Gospel is really the most personal story of Jesus, with the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Visitation, and Jesus getting lost at the Temple.  It depicts Jesus as a constant champion of the poor and downtrodden. It includes the story of the Good Thief.  Great stories all. All our favorite stories about Jesus are in the Gospel of Luke.

And all the great stories about the Apostles and the early church!

If St. Luke ever actually painted anything the painting did not survive. There are a couple of painting floating around out there that some folks seem to believe are his, but there is no good reason to believe they are his works. We hope your paintings fair better. At least they will actually exist.

I hope you'll come back and explain what &amp means or is or does.

The Mummy

So funny and so sensible! It's kind of related, but I have to go stay with my cousin who is seriously ill. We've always been close - more like brother and sister. But the problem is with his wife. If I was charitable, I'd say she was "shy" (that's what my mother says. She is a good woman). I'm less charitable, I'd say she was unfriendly to her husband's family. She can't compromise on anything - it's all right or all wrong (mostly wrong!) and once she makes up her mind, that's it. However crazy, she sticks to her guns and won't budge. I am happy to help my cousin but I am really worried about coping with his wife while I'm there. And I am only staying with them so that she can keep going to work while he's ill and doesn't have to take unpaid leave. Any advice on being nice and keeping the peace, please?

Yes, keep the peace by being peaceful.  When a person is seriously ill, all bets are off. However cantankerous or pig headed that woman may or may not be, her husband is so sick that you have to come and stay with them.  Isn't that enough to just let everything else go? Get a grip.

When I was a little girl we spent Sunday's with my cousins. They were a big unruly family. We were a small quiet family.  We kept our toys nice. They hardly had any toys and the ones they had were cheap and torn up and rather uninteresting. We ran around outside and ate food I didn't care for very much. I ran too close to a rose bush and was raked across the forehead with a thorny branch. One of the boys laughed at me.

So every Sunday I whined about going there. One Sunday I believe my mother had had enough of my whining.

Me: Ugh to we have to go there! I hate going there!

Mom: Did it ever occur to you that right now as we speak they are all saying, "Ugh. Do they have to come here?  We hate it when they come here!" ?

It had not occurred to me. (I feel compelled to add that every week, after all that complaining, I always whined when it was time to go home as I was immersed in fun.)

Has it occurred to you the your cousin's wife is not looking forward to having to deal with not only a seriously ill husband and all that stress and worry and pain and expense, but relatives who will stink after 3 days (as the saying goes) moving in for extensive stays?  She can be grateful and horrified at the same time, you know.

Here is my advice, which I actually lifted from some lady whose name I cannot recall. She was some sort of "life coach" who was yammering on TV.  She was talking to a client who had to face her mean old sister and was dreading the encounter.  "See her wrapped in bandages, " the life coach said.

What a wise thought! See her the way she really is, in pain and worried sick and trying to cope as best she can. Wrapped in bandages.

You're the healthy one here. Your job is to be nothing but loving, no matter what.

I hope you make good soup.

Damage Control

	Hi, Sister, Do you know a patron saint I can invoke for strength and perseverance and against being discouraged? My house and most of my hometown were just flooded by a hurricane. On a less drastic note, I'm struggling to complete my master's thesis, and it feels like I'll never finish. Oh you poor thing! Our prayers are with you. At least you can offering your own suffering for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. We can't speak for your poor neighbors. Of course there are many saints who have weathered storms and saints who are invoked against storms.  There are saints who were trying to head off to be missionaries or trying to escape God's plan for them (by boat) and were dashed against the rocks before they headed on the right path. St. Barbara is the official saint against lightening and storms, but I'm going with St. Scholastica for you! St. Scholastic was the sister of the famous St. Benedict of the Rule of Benedict fame.  In fact, they were fraternal twins. She was visiting her brother in a little house just outside his monastery walls (because she couldn't go into the monastery).  They were having a wonderful engaging conversation about philsophy and life and theology that went on all day and into the evening, when Benedict announced that he had to vamoosh before evening prayers. Scholastica begged him to stay but he insisted he must leave. Not surprising for a man who made up a strict list of rules for everyone to follow. Having lost this round, Scholastica bowed her head in prayer. I'm sure her brother thought that she was just praying for him, but she wasn't. She was praying to God to keep Benedict from leaving. A violent storm arose. Benedict was trapped. For the night. Their conversation continued until morning when the storm broke and the siblings parted, never to see each other again. Scholastica headed back to the house in which she was staying for her visit and died.  I think she's your girl for a little storm control. You will, by the way, finish your master's thesis. Unless you don't. That will be up to you.

A Little Discipline

Sister, Who is the appropriate patron saint for teachers who are tiny and diminutive compared to their large high school students and are scared of mutiny? Thanks, and many blessings!

You don't need a patron saint. You need a habit. Everyone is afraid of a nun in a habit. Young and old, large and small. People are so afraid of nuns, either that one is going to crack them with a ruler or simply that they might say something inappropriate of offensive, that they just shut up.

That makes for an orderly classroom.

Anyone from the dog whisperer to those TV nannies will tell you that the key to discipline is follow through. No empty threats must pass your lips.  If you tell them they must be quiet and they are not, you have to kick them out or send them to the principle one by one and two by two until you are left with no one.

And no negotiating!

A student is talking to another student. "Bob!" you say to the talker in a calm voice.  "Go sit over there."

"But..., " Bob begins.

"I'm not going to discuss this with you. Go sit over there."

Bob moves.  After ten minutes, tell Bob he can go back to his usual seat.

Discipline is not about size. It is about discipline. Your own.

Like this, only in a habit

The teacher I most feared in grade school was about 4'2". Granted she was a nun and,  as if that wasn't enough, she had a face that could stop a train. Like an old witch, really, where the nose and chin look as though they are about to meet at some  point in not so distant the future. So she had all that going for her, too. We had over 50 children in our classroom. No one dared misbehave. Or  misspeel misspell anything.

We don't really want our students to fear us. Not really. We want to create an atmosphere of mutual respect.  That can't happen without discipline. 

I'll get off the soapbox atop my high horse now and recommend the newly minted saint, St. Andre of Montreal.  He was teeny.  Under five feet.  His job was behind the reception desk there at the monastery.  It could be he had to face some scary types there behind the counter.  Or not.

He was a little nothing of a nobody little man.  But he thought there should be a giant Oratory built to honor St. Joseph and he put his little mind to that. The St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal literally looks like you've reached the top of the beanstalk and found where the giant lives, magic harp and magic chicken and all. Brother Andre did that through the sheer power of his will and prayer.

That's discipline!

Thank you, Please

We have gotten a cavalcade of questions but I wanted to take a moment and say, "Thank you." Thanks for reading, writing in, answering each other's questions sometimes more quickly and succinctly that I ever could. And thanks for being understanding when I don't keep up as well as I should.

When I was a young teenager I had a nun who was our theology teacher. This was at an all girl Catholic school. She never taught what you might think of when you think of "theology"--the study of God. There was no catechism, that was all in grade school.  There was no Bible reading or study of the New Testament. We actually did a lot of that in grade school, too.

But she did give massive week long assignments. Assignments that actually took an entire week to complete. Two of them have stayed with me, and one, in particular, has been rather a lifelong assignment.

For one week we had to thank everyone for everything, no matter how large or small, no matter who it was. We were to be relentless and diligent. She must have been surprised at the end of the class when no one thanked her for giving out the assignment. That would have right in the spirit of the thing.

But I loved theology and all its many thoughts and prayers and meanings, and I was always game to take on a challenge.  No big deal, to thank people constantly. Maybe a little silly. Who really needs to be thanked all the time, anyhow? I really don't.

Off I went.  I really didn't realize how many people actually were doing things for me all the time. I'm not sure I really covered everyone and everything. I certainly hadn't thanked her for the assignment. Nonetheless, I was extremely busy all week thanking people.  It was eye opening and thought provoking.

And it felt really good.

You know, at first, you might not really mean it.  You say, "thanks" but you don't actually feel any gratitude. But it sneaks up on you.  By the end of the week I was very grateful for the people in my life and all the things they did for me. It made me want to do more for them.

And I still do it.  Once I started, I never stopped.  It's as automatic to me as a smile or a hand shake can be.  But not so automatic that I don't actually feel the gratitude.

So, I'm passing it off to you.  Try it.  Have your kids try it. One week.

Thanks.

Please and Thank You

Dear Sister, I'm a little new to learning about the Saints, so I'm hoping you can direct me here...is there a patron saint for unappreciated homemakers? (I thought that sounded better than "Who should I pray to when I want to throttle my husband?") I'm trying SO hard to be a loving, gentle, *sigh* obedient wife and mother, but it sure isn't easy when I feel taken for granted all the time. Thanks for any guidance you can give me.

You don't need a patron saint. You need a cast iron skillet. Hide behind the door and clong him with it.

I'm joking.  Although everyone should have a cast iron skillet. It's great for both cooking and attractive biceps.

I have two recommendations. The first is St. Zita, who is the patron saint of homemakers. Little Zita was a maid (so right there, you should feel a kinship).  She was actually greatly appreciated as such, but her boss didn't care for her giving out bread to beggars at the back door and running off to Mass everyday. At one point he told her she couldn't go to Mass until her work was done. She went anyhow, with the bread unbaked and the kitchen uncleaned. When she returned everything was done.

The angels did it. Kind of like the shoemaker and the elves.  Wouldn't that be the best thing in the world? To come back expecting your messy house and all that work to do to clean and tidy up and make dinner and find it all sparkling and clean and dinner in the oven?

Perhaps you should just pick up a copy of The Shoemaker and the Elves and sit around in front of your husband and cry every time you reach the end and all the shoes are made. Eventually he'll want to know why you're crying and you can explain.

There's a word for this type of behavior: passive aggressive.

You have three choices. You can continue as you are, suffering in silence.
You can continue as you are but suffer cheerfully, offering up your suffering to the Poor Souls in Purgatory. (And for that, you'll want to turn to St. Therese the Little Flower who spent her brief life doing exactly that.)

Or you can man up, as they say, and sit that fellow down and have a frank talk with him.

I believe when people do this they tend to approach it the wrong way. They approach these things in an accusatory fashion, "You make me feel terrible and unappreciated all the time."  Have you ever noticed that when you accuse someone of something, even if they are actually 100% guilty, their first response is, "No...that's not what happened", or something to that effect? When people are accused they go on the defensive, even if a couple of moments later they realize you are correct.

Human nature. Flawed.

I propose that you take a tip from people who handle interventions. They actually don't talk about the other person, exactly. It's the first step in understanding that you are not responsible for their actions or reactions.  What they do is talk about how much they love the person, how valuable the person is to them in their lives. Then they talk about how the person's behavior--the behavior--is impacting them. There is a clear distinction between the behavior and the person. Jesus understood this very, very well.

That's my suggestion to you. Tell your husband how much you love and appreciate him. But explain to him that you aren't feeling that from him and it's making you feel bad and it's making your work as a homemaker into difficult drudgery.  Tell him you're willing to tell him thank you a lot more often. Ask him if he'll do the same for you.

The angels won't do it for you. But they will be there to help.

Scandal about Scandal

We've heard back from our previous poster, ripe for further discussion. Unfortunately, the message cut off before it was finished, so I hope we hear from her even further. Here's what we have so far:

Hi sister, I am the one that wrote the question. I suppose I didn't go into details as I was afraid of being a tattle-tale. And much of what you said is eerily on my mind as we transition through this time. I also want to stress that perhaps conservative was not the right word. Just a way of saying a priest who upholds and defends the faith, even if it goes against popular thought. I meant conservative in the sense of being willing to uphold the faith, even in times of trial. Willing to say those unpopular things, because that is what people need to hear, but love all sinners anyway. The priest I mentioned, other than running off a beloved associate pastor and offending some other congregation members with gossip, addressed the sex scandal facing the church that one Sunday. He stood on the pulpit and said he could not teach us the Catholic faith, specifically saying, "I cannot teach the Eucharist." He then proceeded to apologize. "We are sorry for abusing you."

There was more to the message, but it got cut off somehow.

Yes, conservative doesn't seem like the right word to me, either. Upholding the faith is not very conservative, as our faith is not very conservative. I'm not sure why we would call someone who upholds the faith conservative. I worry what the word you might have for those who don't defend the faith might be.

That said, I think what the priest said from the pulpit merits some thinking.  What he said, at least the way you've related it, doesn't make sense to me. I can't think what he was trying to say.

I have a guess though.  Perhaps what he was attempting to say, in what seems to be a very clumsy way, was that he, as part of the clergy, felt culpable for the actions of his brothers, and was apologizing on their behalf.

The sex scandal in the Catholic Church is a massively complex issue for the members of the clergy and I believe it is precisely why it went on the way it did. Part of the awful truth is that the Church thought it was doing the right thing by being forgiving to those fellows and just moving them somewhere. That simple fact is so mind boggling under the circumstances that it causes people's heads to explode. So trying to address it is equally and always explosive, pretty much no matter what you try to say about it.

So why did he bring up the Eucharist? Because the worst part of all of it is a priest and his own state of grace as a minister of the sacrament. We can't go to Communion in a state of sin.  Can the priest administer the Body of Christ in a state of sin?
"The celebration of the Eucharist, however, cannot be the starting point for communion; it presupposes that communion already exists, a communion which it seeks to consolidate and bring to perfection. The sacrament is an expression of this bond of communion both in its invisible dimension, which, in Christ and through the working of the Holy Spirit, unites us to the Father and among ourselves, and in its visible dimension, which entails communion in the teaching of the apostles, in the sacraments and in the Church's hierarchical order." -- Pope John Paul II

So we're all in this together. And perhaps your priest was trying his best to come to grips with a mind boggling list of heinous sins and talk about his own struggle to understand any of it, let alone his place in it. And he was doing so in within the theology as he understands it.

I don't know. I wasn't there.

But we must be very careful in our criticisms of the clergy because they have to face things and understand things that we never have to face or understand, always maintaining a state of grace, which is simply not possible.

St. Francis of Assisi was once told about a wayward priest. This priest was spreading heresy.  What was St. Francis' response? He ran over to where the priest lived and threw himself at the man's feet.

"I don't know whether these hands are stained as the other man says they are. [But] I do know that even if they are, that in no way lessens the power and effectiveness of the sacraments of God... That is why I kiss these hands out of respect for what they perform and out of respect for Him who gave His authority to them." 

Our job as the "not clergy" is to follow the example of St. Francis by spreading the faith, not by pointing out the sins of the bishops and priests, but to live the faith so joyfully that is becomes irresistible.

When in Rome

I can't believe I am about to be on top of a feast day two feast days in a row! And school starts next week. Sometimes we are more efficient when we are busy.  That or the angels and saints are prodding me to get their messages out.

Today is the feast day of one of my favorite saints, St. Monica. This is my favorite rendering of St. Monica, as I imagine that someone who lived a life of worry might have looked like this by the end of it. But St. Monica actually wasn't a sad person. She was patient and steadfast. And unstoppable.
Her parents married their Christian daughter off to a pagan with a hot temper. He wasn't the worst fellow but he did yell at her and tease her about her Christian fasting and charity work. Her mother in law was nasty to her and lived with them.

But Monica soldiered on and they both converted. Her husband was baptized a week before his death. Monica's super famous son, Augustine was 17 when his father died. Augustine was a wild child, even by today's standards and Monica followed him everywhere, much to his chagrine. He finally snuck out of town to Rome. She followed him there, not an easy thing to do back in those days, all on her own. When she finally arrived in Rome, she found he had gone to Milan. So off she went. We all know how Augustine turned out. He is once of the greatest saints and scholars the Church has ever know.

Thanks mom!  Her story is pertinent to today's question from a reader:
 A year ago we got a new priest at our parish. Over the year he has done numerous things to cause resentment in some of our congregation. I won't go into details, but I walked out of mass crying after his last "homily" wondering what he was doing being a Catholic priest. I wrote our Archbishop about some of the things he said and hoped that it would bring to light the need our area has for a conservative priest. I have never done anything like that before. I mean, we don't need a Latin priest, we at least need a priest who isn't so wishy washy on Catholic teaching. One that will uphold the faith, not denounce it from the pulpit. The churches in our area are fairly liberal as well. Lots of hand holding and drums. So what is a Catholic to do in this situation? It makes me ache that I can either go to a mass that feels more like a '60's sit-in or go to a mass where the priest says he can't defend or teach.

I wish you had gone into details, because it's actually impossible to address your question without them.

I think it was a good idea to write to the Archbishop about your concerns. He can tell you if the priest is way off base or not. I can't take your word for it, quite.  I'm not saying you're wrong. I just have no way of knowing if you're right.

Because Jesus was not, by any means, a conservative person. His message was and remains a radical departure from normal human emotions and reactions.  "Turn the other cheek?" Seriously? Who does that? "Take no shoes, take no purse?"  He must mean that kind of symbolically, right?  He must have just meant, "travel light".

But when we read everything He said, we come to understand, often with a rather sinking feeling, that He was dead serious.  I've known people who have turned away from the Church because they just feel they can't possibly live up to what Jesus asked of them.

So I'd like to know more about what the priest is saying up there.  Maybe he's just giving everyone that sinking feeling.

This is a 60's sit in. No bongos. Just cheek turning.

As far as going to a Mass that feels like a 60's sit in, take a tip from St. Monica.  When she moved from her home to Rome and then to Milan, she felt completely at sea because the customs of all three places were differently. She was accustomed to fasting on Saturday. They didn't fast on Saturday in Milan.

I don't know why she couldn't just fast on her own on Saturday. Fasting is not exactly something you do with other people. I would understand it better if she was used to going to a Rosary circle on Saturday and the people of Milan did that on Tuesdays.

Maybe Monica understood the power of all manner of prayer when it is done with others, even if there are bongos involved.

She also went to the Archbishop, St. Ambrose, to ask how to proceed. This was his famous reply:
“When I am here, I do not fast on Saturday, but I fast when I am in Rome; do the same and always follow the custom and discipline of the Church as it is observed in the particular locality in which you find yourself.”

Yes, it was St. Ambrose who gave us the line, "When in Rome do as the Romans do."  He didn't say it quite that way, much the way Humphrey Bogart actually never said, "Play it again, Sam." Nonetheless, that famous quote is from St. Ambrose to help St. Monica with exactly the type of problem you are having.

I think St. Ambrose is trying to help you now.

That's the Queen of Heaven, Just Ignore Her

Hallelujah! I am actually going to be on top of things today and point out to you all that today is the feast day of the Queenship of Mary!

Perhaps this information will upset some people, specifically, the separated brethren, who would like Mary to go sit down, as far as I can tell.  In as much as I vehemently disagree with that sentiment, I do understand why they feel that way. They don't want anyone between themselves and Jesus. I know this because I've had many conversations, while trying to explain Mary's place in our hearts, that ended with, "Well, I just pray to Jesus."

It doesn't matter if I patiently point out that they ask other people to pray for them.  Do they believe that Mary lives on in Heaven? Yes, they do. Then why not ask Mary, of all people, to pray for you, just like you'd ask me to pray for you?  Then comes the previously mentioned conversation ender. I usually mention that it doesn't make sense, in that case, to ask anyone to pray for them, ever.

So today I have a question for the separated brethren. I know you're reading, because I hear from you all the time and I welcome you. Here's the question: Where did you get this idea that we should ignore Mary?

As far as I can tell, the whole notion of dumping the saints as people to ask for intercession came from Martin Luther. I actually understand where he is coming from:
"Furthermore, how will you endure [the Romanists'] terrible idolatries? It was not enough that they venerated the saints and praised God in them, but they actually made them into gods. They put that noble child, the mother Mary, right into the place of Christ. They fashioned Christ into a judge and thus devised a tyrant for anguished consciences, so that all comfort and confidence was transferred from Christ to Mary, and then everyone turned from Christ to his particular saint. Can anyone deny this? Is it not true?"

It actually is not technically true, but I know why he feels that way.  We love our patron saints! If there are people out there praying to saints, that is a problem and that is the issue to which Luther refers. The truth is, we are not to pray "to" the saints, even though we refer to these prayers as such.

The biggest offender springs to mind: St. Anthony.  Technically we may be asking for his intercession to ask Jesus to help us find our keys, but it sure doesn't sound that way when we say, "Holy Tony, come around, something's lost that must be found."  I think if we are honest with ourselves, we somehow believe that St. Anthony will not bother Jesus with finding our keys. Anthony will just find them for us on his own.

So of course the separated brethren are confused. We are confusing.

But so are you, separated brethren, because Martin Luther, who started this particular ball rolling, believed almost everything we believe about Mary, including that she is the reigning Queen of Heaven. He believed that she was immaculately conceived (the Immaculate Conception, which means that Mary was born without original sin on her soul), that she was perpetually a virgin (even though a lot of modern Lutherans don't). He didn't seem to believe in the Assumption.

So how did Mary get pushed into the background? We can argue that St. Rose of Lima might not be the best example to follow when she made herself a hat of glass and spikes. But there is no argument to be found that Mary was not the perfect example of love, obedience, humility, strength and a life of grace. How does one on the one hand acknowledge that Mary is indeed the Queen of Heaven and on the other hand say, "Oh, her? Yes, she is the Queen here. Just ignore her."

Any ideas?

We Want YOU

Hello sister..I wondering if there are any congregation to become a nun that accept someone above the age of 30.

I bet there are a lot. Have you called around?

You mean some religious orders don't accept people over 30? What's the reasoning behind that?

The reason was that we used to be an army. We needed young strong people who would dedicate themselves to a life in Christ, to get into stage coaches and row boats and open schools and hospitals all over the world. We needed young women to take care of the army of old women who had given their lives that way.  It was a hard life behind convent walls even in the days before nuns hit the bricks outside of them.

Yes, we preferred virgins. Everyone was marrying Christ, after all.  But some women still got in after a life of husband and family. St. Rita springs to mind. They didn't want her, but she was persistent. She's not an isolated case by any means.

But there is no doubt that it was harder for a previously married older woman to get into a convent. Ask St. Rita. Even after the angels flew her over the convent wall the other nuns put her to the test. They were as relentless as Rita had been in her bid to get in.

Enter St. Jane Frances de Chantel, a pal of our patron saint of the stressed out, St. Francis de Sales. I feel bad that I didn't get to this a question a couple of days ago when it was actually her feast day (August 18th). I am nothing if not consistent. I always miss telling everyone about saints on the pertinent day. Ask St. Agnes.

Jane was a wealthy girl. She was pretty and vivacious and married a baron when she was 21 years old. She had a very happy life with her husband. They had 6 children, although only 3 of them lived. Jane busied herself with her husband, family, a lot of charity work and daily Mass at the castle.

But after seven years of marriage, her husband died and Jane was inconsolable. She sank into a deep depression, curled up in a ball at the castle. Her father in law threatened to take her children if she didn't snap out of it and come and live with him. So she did. Unfortunately, he had a nasty disposition and his housekeeper was like that women in "Rebecca" who hates Joan Fontaine for no reason other than the fact that she isn't Rebecca.  Jane was nice to them anyhow.

A few years later she met St. Francis de Sales, who convinced her to relax a little. You can relax a little and still be holy.  Jane, meanwhile, decided that she'd like to become a nun. I'm not sure that Francis de Sales didn't simply skip mentioning to her that that would be very hard to do for a 32 year old widow and mother of three. He did tell her to skip trying to become a nun, which she did.

"Wait!", you're saying through the internets, "I know for a fact that St. Jane Frances de Chantel was a nun!"

Yes, indeedy.  Three years later, cagey old relaxed St. Francis de Sales told Jane about an idea he had to start an order of nuns just for older women to join. He wanted to open a place where age or health or other considerations would be swept aside.  These women would not stay behind the convent walls, but be free to roam the community doing spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

They called themselves the Visitation nuns. St. Francis thought that the way Mary behave during the Visitation (where the angel Gabriel told Mary what direction her life was about to take if she agreed).  Meek and humble and ready to serve.  A good motto.

So isn't that lovely? They started an order to serve the community and everyone lived happily every after.

Not so much.  Women running around the community, een if they were nuns, was not acceptable. The women wound up being cloistered after all. (Nuns serving outside the convent walls is much more modern that you think. St. Vincent de Paul was finally able to break that barrier.)  There were only three women in the first convent. The community was under attack because of their desire to not be cloistered.

Then St. Francis de Sales died. Jane's son died. A plague ravaged France. Her son in law and daughter in law died.  And Jane went through depression, and spiritual bleakness and illness.

Being a saint is not for light weights.

The Visitation nuns, however, are still with us! The perfect place for you to begin your search. I applaud you. We are not an army any more.

Yes, we are.  But we are a much smaller army. See your local recruiter today!

All the Better to Eat You With

"Angels certainly seem to do a lot better with their free will than we do. Once the Lucifer situation was settled, it seems no other angel has had so much as an unkind thought." I must correct you Sister. There are many more Angels that have left heaven, and the church knows this too. First, The Church teaches ( even the earliest Apostles taught this ) that we are to ask the name of any angel we meet with. ( This must mean that then the Church can compare notes. :) Second, There are many scripture reference to more then one angel gone bad ( The Church has said "It is written that no angel tormenting men and women is a heavenly Angel".)

I'm not confused, but it appears I have confused you.

The War in Heaven wasn't just Satan, nee Lucifer.  It was Lucifer and his minions. They lost the war and God booted them out of Heaven. They have spent the rest of their time making everyone on earth miserable to the best of their ability. They all had free will.

But angels aren't still falling out of Heaven, randomly, from time to time. Angels falling out of Heaven is over and done with.

We hope.  They do have free will.

It's an interesting point you bring up that we must ask the name of any angel we meet.  The reason for that is the same reason we are not allowed to attend seances and dabble in the occult, even if it seems rather harmless to try and ask dear old sweet Aunt Mildred where she kept the safe deposit box or just reminisce with her.  She may sound like dear sweet old Aunt Mildred at the seance, but she could actually be nasty old Aunt Bealzebub.  The devil is tricky.

Like the wolf at the end of Red Riding Hood. But not that obvious.

I'm not sure what good it would do to ask the angel his name.  If the devil is going to pose as an angel, I'm sure he is not beyond lying about his name.  I think the point was that we must be on guard when it comes to the supernatural.

It is written that no angel tormenting men and women is a heavenly Angel. That is why the Church demands two miracles for canonization. Precisely because no good comes from the devil.

This is also why the Church is so very careful about private revelations, like Mary sightings. It would just be a real feather in Satan's hat to have everyone believing that Mary appeared on the side of a tree and then show everyone to be so foolish as to believe that Mary appeared on the side of a tree.

That glob of chocolate still makes me sad.