K
kesa82
Guest
No, I haven’t been through RCIA yet, so here are some dumb questions;
when I was in 5th grade I found a heavily illustrated biography of St. Joan of Arc in the school library and I was ammediately enchanted with her. I have clung stubbornly to her- or remained faithful to her - ever since, even though for all of those many years I was passionately skeptical of Jesus Christ, and I thought Joan was just an intelligent, and high-functioning , schizophrenic.
A few years ago I ran across a prayer card portrait of St. Dymphna and I was flatly arrested by the image. yes, I know it is only a figurative image, no portraits of near-photographic realism were made of her in her short life, but I have rarely been so affected by an anonymous face. And then her story rocked me.
Later on the same basic thing as happened with St. Dymphna happened with St. Philomena.
I credit these three with leading me to the Catholic Church.
( there were other reasons of course; reflecting on Christ’s crucifixion, laying eyes on the single most buetiful man-made spot I have ever seen; the rosary campus of the academy of the sacred heart in New Orleans, the fact that, at least as far as I can tell from a photograph, after lieing many years in the ground, and still to this day, St. Bernadette looks not dead, but meerly sleeping, without benefit of embalming, and that I asked the Virgin Mary to spare my mother from death, and she did. )
Anyway, can you just adopt a patron saint like that? Even though I’m not a soldier or even fond of soldiering ( Joan) debatedly not mentally ill ( Dymphna ) sick or in big trouble, or otherwise in need of a wooping miracle ( philomena ) ?
Do you think that if you take a particular saint to heart she might develop a friendly interest in you even though there is nothing else apparently in common between you ( except Jesus Christ and the Catholic church of course ) ? Can/do saints serve the same function as gaurdian angels?
I don’t have prurient fantasies about them, nor do I detect anything of that nature in my liking for them, still, the fact that they are females does seem to have a lot to do with my fondness for them. That is, I emote to females much more strongly than to males ( ? ) ( I am male by the way ) though I have always been otherwise remarkably celibate, or perhaps just cold, aloof, and distant. Still, is it seemly for a male to be so taken with female saints, though virtuous in thought and correct in behavior, or am I just complicating things exceedingly?
when I was in 5th grade I found a heavily illustrated biography of St. Joan of Arc in the school library and I was ammediately enchanted with her. I have clung stubbornly to her- or remained faithful to her - ever since, even though for all of those many years I was passionately skeptical of Jesus Christ, and I thought Joan was just an intelligent, and high-functioning , schizophrenic.
A few years ago I ran across a prayer card portrait of St. Dymphna and I was flatly arrested by the image. yes, I know it is only a figurative image, no portraits of near-photographic realism were made of her in her short life, but I have rarely been so affected by an anonymous face. And then her story rocked me.
Later on the same basic thing as happened with St. Dymphna happened with St. Philomena.
I credit these three with leading me to the Catholic Church.
( there were other reasons of course; reflecting on Christ’s crucifixion, laying eyes on the single most buetiful man-made spot I have ever seen; the rosary campus of the academy of the sacred heart in New Orleans, the fact that, at least as far as I can tell from a photograph, after lieing many years in the ground, and still to this day, St. Bernadette looks not dead, but meerly sleeping, without benefit of embalming, and that I asked the Virgin Mary to spare my mother from death, and she did. )
Anyway, can you just adopt a patron saint like that? Even though I’m not a soldier or even fond of soldiering ( Joan) debatedly not mentally ill ( Dymphna ) sick or in big trouble, or otherwise in need of a wooping miracle ( philomena ) ?
Do you think that if you take a particular saint to heart she might develop a friendly interest in you even though there is nothing else apparently in common between you ( except Jesus Christ and the Catholic church of course ) ? Can/do saints serve the same function as gaurdian angels?
I don’t have prurient fantasies about them, nor do I detect anything of that nature in my liking for them, still, the fact that they are females does seem to have a lot to do with my fondness for them. That is, I emote to females much more strongly than to males ( ? ) ( I am male by the way ) though I have always been otherwise remarkably celibate, or perhaps just cold, aloof, and distant. Still, is it seemly for a male to be so taken with female saints, though virtuous in thought and correct in behavior, or am I just complicating things exceedingly?
I have nothing in common with St Joseph, yet I am inspired by the awesome responsibility he took on so uncomplainingly.