Needs ideas for patron saint or prayers to recommend to sibling

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AmoAmasAmat

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Hi… this is my first posting in the forums, and I have a question.

I would like to recommend a patron saint or novena for my brother and his family to use/pray in the coming year. He is retired career military and is trying to discern whether to relocate his family back to home.

I’ve thought of sending him a Holy Family prayer card, or recommending a thirty day novena to St. Joseph… but I’m sure there are others I just don’t know about. Is there a patron saint for retired military or for families discerning a big move?

This is also one of my first forays into encouraging spirituality with a sibling, so advice on that would be nice too.

Thank you!
 
Sts. Michael, George, Martin of Tours, Maurice, Joan of Arc and Sebastian are some of the traditional patron saints of soliders.

It is difficult to give good advice because you don’t say how devout your brother may be and whether he is seeking your help in this way.
 
Thank you for the soldier patron saints. I do wonder, though, if in my brother’s case, his need really has moved out of the soldier’s realm. (Plus there’s a war going on, and I wonder if those saints are pretty busy with the active duty guys over in Iraq?!;))

To provide more insight on my second question:

My brother is a devout Catholic. He and his wife have done an admirable job so far in raising devout children as well. He is not asking my spiritual (name removed by moderator)ut per se, but we have recently spent a good bit of time visiting on the phone, and he sought my advice a bit about how it is to live in our hometown, where I am living.

I did offer the advice to him that I thought he and his family needed to use the next year to prayerfully discern, and he was open to that… but a lot of times when I bring spirituality into conversations with my siblings (all of us adult, all older), the conversation fizzles out. A lot of time, I think advice about praying about something is met with nice head nodding and affirmatives, but it’s regarded as taking your vitamins or exercising more… not accepted really as a valid course of action.

I guess the advice I am seeking or discussion I am hoping to start is (beyond asking for the ideas about good prayers and patron saints to recommend) – how do I more effectively broach the subject of spirituality with my siblings (some are more devout than others)? We are called to evangelize within our family, yes?

Thanks!
 
I hope this isn’t too basic, but have you checked out Catholic online? They have a list of almost any patron saint you can imagine, with many of the saints hotlinked to descriptions for further reading. Hope this helps!

catholic.org/saints/patron.php
 
The question of how to evangelize within the family is a hard one, all right! For me the best approach has been to follow St. Francis’ advice, “preach the gospel constantly, and if necessary use words.”
 
Thank you so much, Arnulf and Brian… I have the Catholic.com website up right now and am amazed at the thoroughness of the Saints’ bios that are available online.

Interestingly, I decided to check out St. Francis of Assisi because he was listed under patron saints for families. I think he may be a fitting one for my brother’s family because of God’s calling him back home at one point in his life. Then I decided to return to this forum to post a reply, and I realized that Arnulf had quoted St. Francis in his advice about evangelizing… I think I may be getting my answer here.

Do you know if there is a St. Francis novena? I should probably look at the Catholic.com website a little further for this info, but if anyone has suggestions, I am open to them…

Thank you again!
 
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