Maybe I Should Be Catholic

I've wondered for a long time if I was missing something by not being a Catholic. There's always been something appealing to me about the rituals, such as the crossing of oneself, the standard prayers (Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen). When I was a child I wanted to be a nun. Took a while to figure out that Congregationalists don't have nuns. Also took a while before I realized that nuns don't all speak with "thee" and "thoust" and all that. (Maybe I should have been a Quaker....hmmmm....anyway. Moving on.)

One of the coolest thing I think I'm missing out on is the idea of the patron saints. I like the idea of having someone specific who has been chosen to bless my particular types of situations. A long time ago I decided that my personal patron saint (not actually being Catholic, I have no idea if I can just adopt my own patron saint or if there's some special procedure or something...but since I'm not going by the rules anyway, I figure it's my call)...anyway...I have adopted St. Jude.

Now, the *reason* I adopted St. Jude is because many years ago I came across this little medal that just spoke to me. Tarnished silver, very beat-up looking, and it had a little figure on it and in barely readable letters it says, "St. Jude Thaddeus, Saint of the Impossible." (the back says "Shrine of St. Jude, Chicago IL, Dominican Fathers) Now, if ever a title appealed to me, it was "Saint of the Impossible." That just clicked. I was in a difficult stage in my life, and the idea of finding my way out of the depths of darkness seemed...impossible.

I've got my medal on a short silver chain and I wear it periodically. Nobody's ever mentioned it or questioned me about the necklace I was wearing. It's almost like it's invisible. But I like having it.

Anyway. I originally started to write because I was going to have a post about Mark's basketball schedule. It has worked out that not ONE of Mark's nine games has a conflict with anything. Each of the THREE times that Kira has Brownies overlapping with Mark's game, it's a home game, so I'll already be in the building anyway. And no conflicts with practices, either, even counting that Kira will be starting her own basketball practices in November. The odds of this working out well are...well...it just usually doesn't happen, something usually ends up being a major pain in the ass, and this season just seems to be scheduling very smoothly (knock wood--I'm not above that one, either). So I was going to praise the basketball gods, and from there I wondered if instead I should praise the patron saint of divorced single moms...which led me to wondering if there WAS a patron saint for divorced single moms (I haven't found one yet...divorced people, yes, and single--meaning never married--mothers, and mothers in general). That got me thinking about ol' St. Jude, my personal patron....Saint of the Impossible. Gotta love that guy. mk