Fun, Fascinating Comments -UPDATED

December 31, 2010 By


Communion of Saints, John Nava

It is rare that the comments thread of a post ends up generating emails from people telling me that they’ve enjoyed reading it so well, but the comments from this Patron Saint post really have been great to read.

It is remarkable how often the Patron and the pick seem to align meaningfully.

ScottB: After a quick prayer, I was given St. Katharine Drexel. As a wealthy heiress who gave away her inheritence to found the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, she is the patroness of philanthropists. How perfect!

The focus of my job changed recently. I now work primarily with wealthy donors and businesses to support a charitable project. Since this is a new area both for me and for the company, I have been struggling to figure out how to be successful.

I could not have asked for a more appropriate patron saint, and I look forward to spending some quality time with St. Katharine in this coming year.

zmama:OK – I just picked another saint to intercede for my employers who are about to lose their bakery. I was given Saint Conrad of Piacenza and this is part of what I read “Legend says that when the Bishop of Syracuse visited him, the bishop asked if Conrad had anything to offer his guests. Conrad said he would check in his cell. He returned carrying newly made cakes, which the bishop accepted as a miracle.” I have chills right now reading this.

Gregg the Obscure: St. John Houghton (first of the 40 martyrs of England and Wales). Knew how to hold his tongue, which I ought to do better.

Frank La Rocca: Well this is downright spooky. I was chosen by St. Jude Thaddeus, whose feast day is October 28 – which just happens to be my birthday (and this year will be my 60th!). He, along with St. Francis of Assisi, who is my baptismal saint, is one of the saints I know best from my childhood. This is because my mother always impressed upon me the story of Danny Thomas and the St. Jude hospital he built for children suffering from catastrophic illnesses (in response to a promise he made early in career to “build a shrine” to this patron saint of lost causes, to whom he prayed for help to pay hospital bill when he was penniless).

I don’t know what my lost cause is – yet – but will pray about this in the coming year.

The Communion of Saints: More things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philisophies, etc…

UPDATE: The comments thread over at Jennifer Fulwiler’s Conversion Diary are also great reads. Kind of awesome.

Filed Under: Communion of Saints
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  • Dave G

    Thanks again for the Patron Saint posts. I noticed the image from the Communion of Saints tapestries at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles at the top of the post. I was at the Cathedral in August this year, and took a photo of each panel. I’ve uploaded the photos onto Picasa — readers are welcome to view.

    link

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  • Lisa

    I’m so glad you re-posted this topic. I meant to come back and choose a saint but was busy all week with company and your post today was a helpful reminder. After a quick prayer… I received St. Leonard of Port Maurice, never heard of him but he comes from the Tuscany region of Italy where my daughter will be this year for study abroad!
    Thank you & Happy New Year

  • LisaM

    This is unbelievable to me, but probably not to you. I’ve been having health problems, I think originating in my back, but presenting as a numb right foot. As I clicked the button, I was asking for prayers and guidance to help me get healthy this year. I got St. Peter the Apostle, the patron saint against foot problems!

    I know there is more to St. Peter than this, and I welcome the opportunity to learn from and about him.

    Thank you for once again touching my life.

  • http://sherryantonettiwrites.blogspot.com Sherry

    I’d seen the saint generator over at Conversion Diary and not taken advantage of it. Then I saw it on your post. I returned. I got Saint Valentine. Feeling vaguely disappointed, I was wondering if I would even follow through when my middle daughter out of the blue mentioned that she didn’t care for the Valentine parties at school as they really didn’t have anything to do with the actual Saint. We had been simply doing the dishes and discussing nothing in particular. So Saint Valentine and I shall become better acquainted as a result.

  • Sheena

    Thank you so much for posting this! I sort of skimmed your previous entry on the topic, but was so intrigued I went back and used the generator.

    St. Joseph. I’m surprised by how little I know about him, and really thrilled to see he is the patron saint against doubt and hesitation. That’s what I need to work against the most—I’ve been feeling called to the Catholic Church (was raised sort of Baptist) for several YEARS now and here I am, still finding reasons to doubt, reasons to hesitate in actually doing what I need to do to actually become Catholic.

  • Foolish Mortal

    I received from the saint generator, St. Anne Line. She was executed in England for harboring a priest. She went to the gallows saying that she regretted that she had hidden only one priest and she wished it was a thousand. I read her biography and found out she was the patron saint of the childless, (of which I am not) and really couldn’t find anything that I thought related to me on any level. I then went to Wikipedia in an attempt to find out something more about her. Well then, there it was…they had her feast day listed, according to the Calendar of the Saints, and it was August 30…my birthday!
    Thank you Anchoress! May your unique light dance and shine and spread its contagious spirit! ~<3~

    [who knows, maybe you're meant to come to the defense of a priest, this year! -admin]

  • Mike

    I was given St. Peregrine Laziosi. The Patron Saint of cancer patients. I had cancer surgery this past year. Weird.

  • Sharon Graham

    David G, I went to your site and loved the pictures.What a great variety of of people called to be saints.Thank you.

  • Beatrix

    Mike – I got St. Peregrine too, although I’m not suffering from cancer as far as I’m aware and neither is anyone I care about. I’m not Catholic, though, so maybe that’s the problem :-)

  • Beatrix

    Oh, and Happy New Year, Anchoress!

  • Beth

    The saint chosen for me is St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, the founder of the first free school west of the Mississippi and the fourth American saint. It surprised me because I had never heard of her and because I have a love of the Rockies, a fascination for our pioneer ancestors and a sympathy for my Native American ancestors. I was even a teacher’s aid in a one room schoolhouse in Wyoming right after high school.

    St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

  • http://www.fromthepulpitofmylife.blogspot.com/ Ruth Ann

    After I figured out how the Saint Generator worked—it took me three tries—I received Blessed Chiara Luce Badano, a very young saint for me, a retired lady. But I’m thrilled, because some of her personality characteristics, like her athleticism and her propensity for prayer and religious leanings, remind me of myself at that age. However, I never had to face such a terminal illness as bone cancer at so young an age. I did, however, survive another form of cancer earlier this decade. I hope to have a good relationship with Chiarra this year.

  • http://www.fromthepulpitofmylife.blogspot.com/ Ruth Ann

    Oops! I think we have started a new decade, so my cancer episode was last decade.