Saints

 I've been watching videos on the saints, and one on the Book of Collosians. (I would have inserted jokes about osteoporosis and Goonies here, cause YouTube, you know?)

I've seen several videos now, the first was on Saint Rita, whose name I would never have known, Margarita. Her story was one of the loveliest. I was in awe of her insistence to be given permission to join a cloistered convent. Speaking of which, after her story, I watched one on Saint Catherine of Siena, who was a lay woman. She strikes you as odd. But it is more than odd when you start compounding their stories. She helps see the Pope back to Rome, when before her,  even at the same time that she lived, Saint Bridget of Sweden worked to do the same thing. Another lay woman, Saint Bridget died before seeing the Holy Father to Rome, but it was her mission to do so. It makes you wonder if they do not conspire together to make the dream work.

Saint Rita lived a long life in seclusion in great pain from a head wound of the stigmatic type. She had asked for a glimpse at this suffering. After her I saw one on Saint Francis of Assisi, and was surprised at the fullness of the story which is mostly missed. So much of their stories are missed. We know he was a stigmatic but not how it came about or how it ended dramatically. There were paintings that illustrated these known things that are mostly forgotten. That he witnessed some transfiguration type thing upon a mountain, and that afterward he had become the first to have his hands, feet and side wounded. That he tried to hide them but was in a great deal of pain. And that at his death there were raised markers within them which were like nails are all facts unincluded in his general fame. 

When Saint Rita died, she recieved signs from God. She asks first, "please gonget a rose from my home" this innwinter. Then asks for two figs. These miracles were gifts from God to ease a dying Saint. So beautiful.

When Saint Thomas Aquinas was young, he had a chastity belt tied around him by perhaps angels. A rope. These things were continuing marks in all these saints lives, from their earliest years. Some as young as six. 

There are many videos of them and *movies we have never seen or heard about. A Saint Francis movie is free on YouTube and one of Saint Bernadette. I enjoyed Saint Fursey's book which is posted below here on Facebook. The miracles attributed to him remind us of when Jesus said there will be some who perform miracles of great importance after me. It was said he struck many springs from the ground and that he raised the dead. His path crossed with another Saint who became, after great notoriety and wealth as an artist goldsmith who wore jewel encrusted clothing, much like Francis wearing a rope belt.

I am inclined to do similarly. That we live in times of wealth and are mostly in a state greater than lukewarmness,  we seem charmed by things very small next to these great ones. I pondered this for a while now. I will keep on doing that......

*There is a 1950s "Lord of the Rings" with an outstanding all star cast; Charleston Heston, Gracie Kelly, Audrey Hepburn.