Props due St. Anthony of Padua & St. Joseph

I know it always puzzles my non-Catholic Christian friends when they hear us Papists talk about saints, or “praying” to saints. I’ve often made the distinction that when we talk to our saint friends – those who have gone before us and are now living in the Presence of God and comprising that cloud of witnesses (how could this not be? We believe in Eternal life!) – we really are “talking” to them just as we would talk to anyone of whom we were asking intercessory prayer. I might say to you, “I have a kidney stone and a doctor who is just itching to give me a colonoscopy, pray for me, will you?” And you will understand what that means; you’ll pray for my intention. You might say to me (or to anyone in your church) “I lost a valuable piece of jewelry, please pray that I might find it, would you?” And I would do that. I would pray that you would be inspired to find where you’d misplaced the item, attentive to promptings of the spirit, or little nudges of memory.

When a Catholic notable for particular holiness dies and we begin to “talk” to him or her, we often look into their lives and see what it was that they were particularly known for, and we begin to go to that friend looking for intercessory prayer of a singular and specific kind.

For instance, John Paul II was known for his fearlessness, so if I am fearful, I might say, “Pope John Paul, please pray for me that I might not be so fearful.” If I am having a period of darkness and spiritual dryness, I’m quite sure I’d ask Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (more about her own dark night of the soul, later) to pray for me that I might endure that trial for its duration, or that I may be led out of it in God’s Mercy. St. Michael the Archangel is the awesome Defender against Evil and Warrior of God – I talk to him a lot with my kids out on their own. St. Joseph, the step-father of the child Jesus and provider for his family, is the go-to guy when I am fretting about my own husband, his job, his satisfaction in his work or the pressures of providing for a family.

You get the idea. The Communion of Saints brings us thousands upon thousands of holy men and women – both “official” and unofficial – to whom we can look to for spiritual companionship, human-to-human, “hey, St. Theresa of Avila, you had to deal with humorless prunes, please pray that I may have patience with this one” or “oh, Maximilian Kolbe, you gave your life unselfishly; please show me by your example how to stop being so clingy,” or “St. Francis de Sales, you’re the patron of writers, I’m way behind on a deadline here, please pray for me and help me to stop allowing distractions to rule!”

The “Patron” saint moniker is merely a formal way of saying what I wrote earlier, that some saints, because of who they were or what they did, we look to for particularly strenuous and effective prayer-support.

I just know that for me, knowing I can call on these other humans who persevered with grace and virtue and heroic faith is just the inspiration I need, sometimes, to keep slogging away, in my own faulty, imperfect and human way. Christ is still the center. But he has a lot of friends!

So, props are due right now to several saints who have been dependable friends and intercessors to this family in the past few weeks, particularly St. Joe and St. Anthony of Padua. Why them particularly?

Well, I can’t tell you all the reasons why I’m thankful to St. Joseph this week, but – being a provider – he is thought of as a “Patron” saint of those in need of housing. Since we had a sudden and urgent need to find suitable housing for my Elder Son in his last year of school, I talked immediately to St. Joseph and asked him to help with his prayers. But my prayers were not simply for housing…I was also asking Joseph to pray for my son’s “faith” situation which going through one of those entirely understandable yet galling “wavering” periods. My brainiac son is highly disorganized and while not “unfaithful,” while at school he has been nowhere near a church and too distracted to find one and learn the mass times, etc. So I was throwing two requests at Joseph, that he might pray for housing but also that he might help my son find his way back to church.

Within 30 hours of our discovering our emergency housing need, our son was able to find an excellent small apartment, 2 miles from school, in a safe neighborhood with a great landlady…and exactly, directly across from a Catholic church. I mean, his front door is 30 feet from the church. In a day of looking at many units, my husband and I saw that and we knew, immediately, that this was the apartment meant for him – but of course we kept that knowledge to ourselves, as good parents should, and let our son decide for himself. Thank you, St. Joseph, I see something is in the works.

Seeing the name of the church made me wonder if St. Joseph, tired of listening to my concerns, hadn’t tossed some of them toward St. Anthony of Padua, the Patron saint of what is lost or missing. Hmmmm…well, my son has been a “missing” sheep, and St. Anthony, who had been a Franciscan Friar and follower of St. Francis of Assisi, is also called “the wonderworker” because he’s a good guy to talk to when things are very tough…and my goodness finding such suitable housing can be called “wonder-full.”

St. Anthony helped out today, too, when Buster’s school seemed to have lost an important package I had sent to him. We talked. Suddenly it was located.

These friends of mine…I just love talking to them, asking them for prayers and support…and always remembering to say “thank you,” which none of us ever seem to say enough to anyone, in this world or the next!

I need to figure out who is the Patron saint of chocolate addiction…

NOTE: The two images above are taken from the splendid and meditatively beautiful tapestries by John Nava that adorn the walls of the other-wise deplorable Monstrosity Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. There will be a DVD program on these lovely works of art available soon.