jim henson

Today our priest gave out blessed roses--something I'd never seen before.

Today is the feast of St. Rita, our parish's patron and it is a tradition to bless roses on that day. The tradition comes from a story of Rita asking for a rose from her garden on her death bed.  It was winter and snow was on the ground.  Nevertheless, the attending sister went outside and found a single rose blooming in the garden.

Today, in honor of St. Rita, stop and smell the roses, and then, thank God for them!  

In the 1920's 2 American women saw poverty and suffering.  Each took a different course to try to end it.

The first, Margaret Sanger, said that "The most merciful thing a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."  She founded the American Birth Control League. Her solution to poverty and suffering was to separate out certain classes and races of people and to kill them.  Her organization later became Planned Parenthood.  In 2007, it killed more than 305,000 children in the name of women's "health".

Katharine Drexel was born to a wealthy banker who instilled in his daughter the idea that her privileged position was given to her by God.  She founded The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Black and Native American Peoples, giving both her wealth and her life to those who lived on the margins of society.

She was canonized in 1988 and is the second saint born in America.  Her feast is today, March 3.

Michele of Simply Michele has generously offered to give everyone a saint for the year 2011.  If you'd like to participate, leave her a comment at her blog.  

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The virtue for August is diligence or perseverance. The saint who best exemplifies this trait is St. Monica.   Her son, Augustine was a troubled youth who lived an immoral life after accepting the Manichean heresy.  Perhaps its most enticing doctrine was, as Augustine later explained, that "it was not we who sin but some other nature that sins within us.  It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no guilt, and when I did wrong, not to confess it."  A perfect system of belief for the young man who had lost his father at the age of 17.

At first, Monica refused to let Augustine into her home.  Then, after a vision saying that Augustine would eventually return to the faith, and after encouragement by her bishops, Monica decided to take another tack and stay close to Augustine, praying and fasting for him.

Augustine converted after years of prayer and fasting on the part of Monica.

It is so difficult to be persistent in our prayers and in our faith, especially when the "answer" to our prayers seems to be so long in coming.  We need to be like the woman in Christ's parable who continues to pester the judge until her request is answered.

St. Monica, beg Our Lord to give us the strength to follow your example.