Saint's Day

Saint’s Day ©

By Michael Casey

Today is the feast of Saint Martin de Porres, 3^rd Nov 2015, I introduced him to my daughter a few months ago when our cat went AWOL and only came back when full of fleas. Totoro had gone walkabout, or rather climbabout as cats do. My small daughter was distraught, the cat was her heart’s desire and she and her sister had only got the cat when my heart had broken.

It had been a kind of joke a year ago, almost to the day now. I said if I had a heart attack they could finally have a cat and if I died they could have a dog. So they immediately went looking at cats and dogs on the Internet. In a matter of weeks I had a totally unplanned quadruple heart bypass.

So some saint must have been looking after me, or God really DOES have a sick sense of humour just like in the Blasphemous Rumours song by Depeche Mode. So the girls got a pet, I had to keep my word, so Totoro joined the family. I did pick him or her as she turned out to be, from a photo of 4 kittens from a litter. I chose the pretty one. Totoro turned out to be a ninja cat, who loved climbing trees and catching fleas.

Which brings us to Saint Martin de Porres, I told my daughter if she prayed to him he’d bring Totoro home to us. Well Tororo did come home to us after a day or two, and Saint Martin got a new admirer. I’d shown my daughter an old religious card, it was in my mother’s old prayer book, the only memento I have of my soon to be dead 20 years mother.

We pray to this saint or to that saint when we need a favour, when we are at our wit’s end. It amuses or bemuses other Faiths, and is a great source of comedy. It you are old enough you may remember Milo O’Shea and Yootha Joyce in Mi Mamma, in one episode several statues of the saints are thrown out into the landing because the Pope had said they may not be really saints after all.

Prayer has it rituals, I was an altar boy for 8 years and a reader for 5 years, so I had a front row seat to all the candle carrying and smoke shaking. It is theatre and it can be totally spellbinding. Ironically enough it’s the Requiem Mass which is the nicest, Lazarus being brought back from the dead. Jesus wept for his friend. Even though Lazarus would smell by now Jesus insisted, he brought his friend back to life.

So by using the avenue of a Saint we ask for favours. You’ll ask your mum or your aunty, or a friend to help when you really need a favour. So we use a Saint, though in my own case I can at times scream for the saint called Painkiller, arthritis and post quadruple heart bypass are horrible bedfellows.

In Europe and South America I believe you have a Saint’s Day which is like an extra Birthday, the saint after whom you are named gives you an extra day to celebrate. I’m all in favour of this. Christmas, Birthday, Saint’s Day as well as Pay Day which is a tradition too.

There is a great psychology behind prayer via a saint, it’s like picking your fantasy football team, with no shouting at the team doctor, and then they all work for you. You can see the passing and the build-up, and then a final pass and chip and volley and it’s in the back of the net. GOAL!  The process of prayer is what makes you relax and calms you down. Then you have to accept what is.

You have to work out for yourself is prayer to this saint useful, is any prayer useful to any god, is there a God anywhere? I can only speak from my own life experience. Padre Pio I believe has intervened in my own life, if you read Padre Pio and Me you can judge for yourselves. If you feel humbled by what has happened against all the odds then we are perhaps in the realm of miracles.

The question is do you Believe, or do you wait till you have put your fingers in the wounds.

Happy Saints Day Saint Martin de Porres.