St. Anthony

I was brought up strict Roman Catholic, the kind that sat through the Tridentine Mass, lived through meatless Fridays, and pinned Kleenex to the top of my head if I forgot my chapel veil.  As far as those Fridays, my Protestant mother cooked me a hot dog for lunch one time, and made me swear not to tell my father.  Her imagination for Fridays included fishsticks, and whatever else could not be meat but was a cooked meal.  She had the law as laid down by my father that dinner was to be hot, not breakfast food, and included me not eating with them at the table.

Her go-to Friday night supper was usually mashed potatoes (hot), Birds-eye bright orange squash (hot), and fried eggs (hot).  We weren't a fish eating family unless it came from the frozen food section in rectangular sticks and was breaded.  Even those were consider fancy, exotic, and desperate.  Picky food for blue collar families.  But then, the Church said no meat, and if you were over the Age of Reason and ate it even if your own mother put it on your plate, it was a venial sin; if you actively planned to go to your Protestant friend's birthday barbecue and ate a hamburger on purpose, now that was a mortal sin, an offense against your relationship with God.  Two hamburgers and here come the pitchforks.  However, if Mom threatened to clop you one in the head if you didn't eat what was put in front of you, that was understood and accepted as an act of self-preservation

Sort of like you can kill a dude if you are in danger of losing your life from his actions.  The rules and regulations of the Church, well, I'm not familiar with the latest interpretations and revisions for I stopped going once I found out that after annulment, dotting all the i's necessary, and paying $350 for the process, that attending Mass was allowed, but not communion.  I was supposed to go to "Divorce Class" for another fee.  These days, 25 years later, it seems to have let up a bit, and an annulment gives you a pass to belong fully to whatever the Church is dishing out. Still, if you remarry without an annulment, you are not considered as being married by the Church. You are to live together as brother and sister, and unable to participate in sacraments.

But, there are perks to being Catholic, and the biggest one besides the elaborate pageantry with candles, incense, mysterious rituals, visions, miracles, resurrections, and intercessions are the saints.  I can't begin to tell you the exact number of saints there are, and many were declared so simply by the Church upon their death until the year 1234, when it was decided that the process needed tightening up.  Criteria were established, so that just anyone killed in a brawl could not be found as deserving of reverence as a genuine, living on bread-and-meat-brought-by-a-raven holy person.

Each saint has the ability to intercede with God, to speak to God on human behalf; each one of them, and there are over ten thousand, have a connection to their life on earth.  This means that you can pray to the saint who has the most expertise in the area addressed.  For instance, St. Columbanus is the patron saint of motorcyclists because he traveled, wandering through Europe.  St. Ambrose is the patron saint of beekeepers and candlemakers, St Theresa of Avila favors lacemakers and chess players.  You got a problem, the Church has a pavilion full of saints.  This also underscores the life after death thing, if you have a whole, working, categorized community in another dimension.

So, this is the story: On December 9, twenty days ago, my wallet was stolen out of my purse which was in a drawer in my classroom.  There was only $6 in it, and I will only say that it was not a student.  Today, twenty days later, I found a notice in yesterday's mail that the post office is holding a lost wallet for me, $3.60 postage, please.  My wallet?

A friend had suggested that a prayer to St. Anthony might get it back, and I think I snorted; now, I have begged St. Tony for car keys a hundred times, but a wallet stolen by a perp?  Naw. No. Har de har har.  But I talk to the unknown regularly, so why not?  Presumptuous of me, why should anyone listen about a wallet when so many serious problems trouble the world?  Yet I did; I apologized for bothering him, but if he had connections, and if it wouldn't hurt anything or anyone, it would be nice to have it back, thank you, and here in the mail is a notice saying come and get it, after you pay the postage.

Don't forget, that if you ever do find a wallet, a driver's license, or government I.D. card, you can drop it into a mailbox and the USPS will put it in an envelope and get it to the owner.  I want to find out the particulars, such as which mailbox, when was it dropped in, and then ask if I should call the police as I had filed a report regarding the incident.  Probably.

But then, there is still this business with St. Anthony, or was it merely the wheels of time?

The corner to 2020 is sliding into place, a leap year, a Chinese year associated with the rat, indicating prosperity.  Light is gaining a toehold, and cats and saints are keeping score in the matter of lost things.  Roscoe stole the bath tub plug and plopped it into the cat food, still has my twenty dollar bill, and returned the lost Apple Watch.  St. Anthony has revealed places hiding car keys, cell phones, Finnegan the kitten, my mother's engagement ring, and simple calmness.  Calm.  Calm down, girl, it will reappear; and if not, you just live without it.

Within the curved hulls of sailboats, there are bunks with high wooden rails to keep you from rolling out if the weather is rough.  Mattresses are thin, made to be shaken and aired above decks; a decent blanket is cotton in summer, wool for colder nights.  When you are on a boat, this is what you see before retiring: the black evening sky full of stars and planets, the luminous Milky Way spilling across the vault of heaven and you wonder, what am I supposed to be doing here?  When you fold under the blankets, and lay on the flattest of pillows, you will feel the heartbeat of the earth contained in water's waves, pulsing and rocking your bed in rhythm with current and tide.

Sleep then, and pass through the door of forgetfulness.  Night will cover you.