The saints — they pick you. When they
want to befriend you, they insert themselves into your life. For my birthday
present, my parents ordered an Immaculate Heart of Mary picture from an online
store. What arrived in the mail was a St. Joseph statue. They called the store
about the error, the order was re-shipped, and once again — St. Joseph. So in
addition to the Immaculate Heart on the wall, I have a little shrine to St.
Joseph because he insisted on being there. Thank you, St. Joseph.
If you have a special intention and can’t wait
for one of these providential incidents to drop a saint into your life, there’s
also a way to “make” a saint pick you. On New Year’s Day, each person in my
family uses the Saint’s Name Generator at saintsnamegenerator.com to get a
special patron for the year. All you do is click the “Find a Saint for Me!”
button; say a prayer; and when you’re ready to meet your saint, click “Show Me
My Saint.” The website provides you with your saint’s name and feast day, and a
list of things he or she is patron of. The link to “Learn More” about your
saint takes you to the saint’s biography on another website.
When a saint enters your life, through
the Saint’s Name Generator or some other way, sometimes there are obvious
connections, while other times, you are left wondering. My patron for this past
year was Blessed Anton Martin, an educator and textbook writer. I know he
helped me with my teaching job. Last year, it was St. Andrew Bobola, a martyr
with a temperament the polar opposite of mine, and the year before it was St.
John Vianney, a fellow devotee of St. Philomena. The saint who volunteered to
patronize this article is St. Francis of Paola, miracle worker, hermit at 15
and founder of a religious order at 19.
No matter whether the particular
influence of the saints in our lives is clear or hidden, we can be sure that
the saints want us to be happy. We should want happiness for other people too,
and it doesn’t have to be a mere sentimental wish. Jesus told St. Gertrude,
“Know that the more you pray for anyone, the happier they will become.”
A corollary, then, to picking a patron
saint is to pick a person to adopt spiritually for the year. That is, quietly
choose someone for whom to pray and offer up little sacrifices over the course
of the year, doing in a humble and imperfect way what the saints do for us.
The reflex choice probably would be a
person in great need of conversion, but also consider picking a fellow
Catholic. Obtain the graces to make them a saint, and they will draw others to
Heaven along with them. We don’t have to do much. St. John Vianney said, “When
we have only a little, very well, let us give a little.” Perhaps begin by
clicking the “Find a Saint for Me!” button.
Wagner can be reached at ekwagner2012@yahoo.com