Dear St Lucy..

I have been closely following the progress of little Coy over at PrayforCoy. He’s a little boy who was born at only 24 weeks gestation and has been fighting for his chance at life. I simply stumbled across their blog and was sucked into the drama of it all. It brings me right back to the joy and heartache of our own #2 in the NICU and battling daily to live. My heart and prayers go out to this family.

Coy is beginning to show signs of retinopothy of prematurity. (I’m sure I spelled at least part of that wrong.) This is when the retinas detach and the child goes blind. Often, they can be surgically reattached, but this is a 2 pound baby, so nothing is simple.

I want so badly to write to them about asking for the intercession of St Lucy, patron of the blind. How comforting it could be to have friends in high places looking out for you. I hesitate because they are evangelical protestants and I don’t think they would understand. I don’t want then fearing that I’m invoking idols on behalf of their child. That they have such a deep, wonderful faith is readily apparent from their writing, and it would not be kind of me to put them into any kind of turmoil.

I have run into this problem with Protestants in general and Evangelicals in particular before this. The natural responses of a Catholic to tragedy cause scandal in our Christian brethren. So what do you do? When an acquaintance told me of her father’s death, I said I would pray for him and she looked at me funny. Why would I pray for the dead? They’re either There or they’re not, aren’t they? I meant it in charity and love, but it caused confusion, and was not the proper time to explain about the Catholic understanding of what is to come.

Is it kinder to tailor what we say to our audience a bit? Is it okay to say to a family, “I will pray for your son’s eyes” and not tell them that you will also seek the outside help of a beloved saint? Should we only pray to God and ignore the saints if that is what the request is, because prayers to saints make them uncomfortable?

I don’t want my faith to be a billy-club with which I beat the Protestants around me. On the other hand, I have to live my faith in the way which I am called to live. I have to be faithful to all that I have been taught and profess to believe or else there is no point to it.

So, on prayforcoy, I offer prayers to the Almighty in their combox, and on Shoved to Them, I ask for the help of St Lucy:

O God, our Creator and redeemer, mercifully hear our prayers that as we venerate Thy servant, Saint Lucy, for the light of faith thou didst bestow upon her, Thou wouldst vouchsafe to increase and to preserve this same light in our souls, that we may be able to avoid evil, to do good and to abhor nothing so much as the Blindness and the darkness of evil and of sin.
Relying on Thy goodness, O God, we humbly ask Thee, by the intersession of Thy servant, Saint Lucy that Thou wouldst give perfect vision to our eyes, that they may serve for Thy greater honor and glory, and for the salvation of our souls in this world, that we may come to the enjoyment of the unfailing light of the Lamb of God in paradise.
Saint Lucy, Virgin and martyr, hear our prayers and obtain our petitions.
Amen.