Happy All Saints!

I'd like to dedicate this particular post to my four patron saints, plus St. Katharine Drexel, who my church is named after! (We're the first church in the world named after St. Katharine, as our bulletin so proudly proclaims...) She was a pretty awesome lady, filthy rich by means of her filthy rich parents, but she spent it all creating schools and the like. She was especially dedicated to the black and Native American populations. For instance, she founded Xavier University in Louisiana, which was the first black university in the nation (or something like that, I'm not quite sure).

In the first picture, you can see Patron #1, Saint Joan of Arc, who was also my Confirmation saint. I admire her greatly for many reasons. When I was little, it was because she kicked butt and had a sword. Now, I also admire her piety, obedience, bravery, and total submission to God above and beyond whatever weapons she may have possessed. All the same, I still think it's cool that she was leading armies and stuff... Catholic girls rock.

Next and less predictable is Patron #2, Saint Dismas who has the great honor of being the only saint canonized by Jesus himself. I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but the story about "the good thief" is somewhere in the Gospel of Luke. He rebukes Gesmas, the author thief, for being a jerk, and then asks Jesus to remember him in His kingdom. Jesus then says something along the lines of, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." St. Dismas, so commonly overlooked, has become a comforting patron for me and I have an extra special devotion to him.

Next is Saint Lucy, shown here with her weird little eye plant, who was the Confirmation saint of two of my best friends. I look up to her because sometimes I think about how nasty it would be to have your eyes gouged and I absolutely marvel at her dedication to God to bear all that bravely. Plus, my seventh grade CCD teacher handed out saint cards on the last day, and I got Saint Lucy. I'm a sucker for seeing the Hand of God in little things like that, so ever since then she's been my Patron #3. Going along with that theme, St. Gerard is another saint I pray to, because once our youth group was visiting this old church and the priest there handed out saint medals, and I got one with St. Gerard on it. So, I guess he's sort of an unofficial Patron #5. To tell the truth, I have a lot of saints and blesseds I pray to off an on more frequently than others, but I'm dedicating this to my "core."

Finally comes my Patron #4, St. Augustine of Hippo, whom I adopted as a patron a.) because he's a scholarly sort of guy, and b.) because he started his life off as much less than a Christian but then changed his whole life around and became a Father of the Church. I respect that. As with St. Dismas, I have a great love for the themes of repentence, forgiveness, and redemption of the notorious sinner. (For example, I hated A Tale of Two Cities until in the end Sydney Carton sacrificed his life to save Darnay and then I was this huge Sydney Carton fan because he was redeemed by his sacrifice and I thought that just rocked.) As for the scholarly bit, when I first got into reading about theology and religious stuff, I decided that he'd be a good patron saint, and that was even before I decided that maybe I'd like to be a professor of theology. Then I decided that would really rock, and I found my choice of patrons even more appropriate.

So anyway, a very happy All Saints to everyone! (I know it's tomorrow, but I just got back from a vigil Mass so it's on my mind...)