Missing Mass; Prayer Updates: St. Timothy, St. Dymphna, & St. Martha.

I feel very childish today. Why? Because I cried when I found out I wasn't going to make it to Mass. Mom comforted me (as she always does) saying that things happen for a reason and that God knew that I wanted to be in Mass but couldn't.

See, I had my Oceanography class today. I'm taking a fast paced 8-week Oceanography course that meets once a week on Sundays. I had already planned on leaving early so I could make it to my usual Mass (last English Mass at my parish). Luckily, the professor let us out an hour early since it was the first meeting. I was excited because it meant we would be able to make it to Mass. We stopped at a Target on the way to kill a little bit of time. BIG mistake. When it came time to leave for the parish the car failed to start. Dad took some time trying to find a gas can and then to walk to the gas station. By this time, it was about 15-20 minutes into the Mass. I still had hope we could rush there and at least make half of it. Dad comes back with the gas and then... the car STILL won't start. He then decided to ask people if they would give a jump start to the car's battery in case that was a problem. Quite a few people said no until a woman took pity on us and brought her truck to help. I'm glad we had the jumper cables or else it might've been even more difficult to find help. We finally left the Target parking lot around the time the Mass would've ended. I ended up in tears on the way home.

So, as you can see, it was a pain and it wasn't like I didn't want to go to Mass, I just couldn't because of the car stalling. This is something I always do -- the tearing up. I always get really sad when I can't make it to Mass. *sigh* I'm even MORE bummed out than usual because I had dedicated the Mass as a thanks to Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Timothy for their intercessions. (Though I will keep why I gave to Our Lady to myself. That's between her and I. :D)

For those of you who have read my blog long enough, you know how I suffered from an intestinal virus (which I got around the time I started traveling) a few months ago. It took about 2 months for it to completely leave my system. It totally threw my digestive system out of whack. I started asking St. Timothy for his intercession (since he is the patron saint of digestive and intestinal problems) and it started getting better. Thankfully, I'm back to normal now and my way of saying "Thank you" to St. Timothy was the Mass. Oh, and while I'm publicly saying thanks to St. Timothy (WHOO!) I want to update some of you on other miracles other saints have done recently.

To further prove how amazing St. Dymphna is (my anxiety is virtually gone now!), I have yet another miracle she's done for someone else. A few months ago, in May, I wrote about the husband of a friend/co-worker of my mother's (Roadtrips, Relationships, Tests, and Prayers Everywhere -- second to last paragraph). Remember how I mentioned he was suicidal? Well, they kept tabs on him and he actually DID read the prayer daily. It seems to have really helped him! He's back to his old self, pre-suicide attempts! It made me SO happy to hear that and I hope that others will see that prayer works! Depression, anxiety, panic disorder, etc; just pray for her intercession and St. Dympnha will help you out. :D

Also, St. Martha has helped my mom out a lot lately at work. Mom said both times she's asked St. Martha for her intercession, it seems like either the time has flown or like there wasn't much heavy labor work to do in the first place.

You can always go straight to Christ and ask him for help or you can find the saint that's the patron of a particular thing and ask them for their intercession. Either way, prayer works... and boy, does it! :D

Alright, well, I have to go read/finish "Beowulf" for my English Lit class tomorrow. Oy, I don't even want to think about how long the day will be. lol. :D I hope everyone had a nice weekend! :D

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless.
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Puppy, Annual "Clean-a-thon", and Miracles.

Well, the coldness continues but thankfully dad's feeling much better. He tried to go outside a few hours ago, to check the mailbox, but I wrestled the keys out of his hands. No, really, I grabbed one end of the keys and he had the other and I managed to get them from him. It was kinda funny because I also grabbed the spare key before he could even remember where it was and I then let out a Nelson (from "the Simpsons") style "Ha Ha" which made my parents laugh. I ended up going to check the mail... with my pajamas, a hoodie and my peacoat over my hoodie. Yes, it was that cold.

Christmas might've officially been 2 days ago but it still feels like it. Today I got one of the best presents I received this year, a little stuff puppy. I ended up naming him... drum roll, please... Puppy. Yes, very creative, aren't I? He's the cutest little thing and the closest thing to a pet I'll ever have.



Besides that little cutie, nothing much going on with me. Well, nothing except my big annual "Clean-a-thon". Every year, two days after Christmas, I start going through everything I own (I mean, EVERYTHING) and I throw away or donate whatever I didn't use or no longer need. I usually throw away things such as schoolwork that's piled up through the year, things I thought I was going to use this year but didn't, etc. I donate books or clothing I was given but didn't use. Since I was in school this entire year (I didn't even get summer vacation), I have a slew of paperwork that is useless. I have a feeling I won't be throwing out much this year, so it'll hopefully take me a day or two to go through everything and clean everything properly. I am hoping it won't take me 4 days like it did last year. My aim, like it is every year, is to finish by the 31st. I'm a minimalist so I like to start off each year with only the basic things I do need/want.

One of the things I hope to do while I do my clean-a-thon is try to fix the statues and framed pictures we have around the house. As promised in my blog yesterday, I am going to post a picture of the little statue we have of the Santo Niño de Atocha. I had totally forgotten that we had it in storage because it had been pretty battered during the '94 Northridge Earthquake and it was out for a few years longer before we decided to store and later fix it up... which is what I intend to do someday soon. And, I actually have a little story about the statue of Santo Niño de Atocha and one of St. Jude Thaddeus, so gather 'round, kids.

This story takes place in mid-January 1994. I was about 8 years old at the time and I'd never experienced a real big earthquake before. In the wee hours of the morning, I somehow woke up, out of the blue, and it took me a bit to get back to sleep. After I'd finally gotten back to sleep, I felt my dad picking me up from my bed, very abruptly and I opened my eyes to see (and feel) everything shaking violently. Things were falling off the walls, glasses and china was breaking everywhere... if you've ever experienced an earthquake, you know what I'm talking about. Since this earthquake was a really big one, the lights went out almost immediately after the intense aftershocks started. I did not know what was going on. All I knew was that I had to stay under the doorframe (or is it doorway?). I don't remember too many details about what happened during the shaking except that the statue of St. Jude fell as soon as we (my parents and I) reached the doorway and were safe from anything falling on us. I won't write much more about what happened during the earthquake because the images are still pretty vivid (and it's been nearly 14 years since) and it would take me a long time to write it out.

Anyhoo, I was talking to my mom about the statue of Santo Niño de Atocha and one of the St. Jude statues in my room. I knew they'd fallen during the earthquake -- they're still chipped -- and I very faintly remember (or think I remember) St. Jude's statue falling as soon as we got under the doorway and my mom confirmed it. Apparently, while all other things were falling around us there are three things that didn't fall: the statue of Santo Niño, the statue of St. Jude and the big framed picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe which was up on my bedroom wall. Now, the earthquake was a 6.7 on the richter scale, it was pretty intense. Windows shattered just by the shaking, yet the picture did not fall or get hurt in any way. It was like a miracle. We count them as little miracles we experienced that day. My mom says they (saints and Our Lady) were all looking out for us. Thankfully, we managed to get out of the building, in between aftershocks, without getting hurt and all we suffered was property damage. We haven't experienced an earthquake that intense since, thank God, but every time we have experienced smaller earthquake (and/or aftershocks from nearby earthquakes) my mom grabs the St. Jude statues without even thinking about it. My dad grabs the statue of Our Lady and my mom grabs St. Jude... if I don't get to him before she does.

Those were my little stories involving the statues so I think it would be appropriate to post the pictures now. You'll be able to see the chips I was talking about.

Santo Niño de Atocha


That's my wonderful grandmother in the picture frame behind him. I thought it was cool that her picture ended up in this picture because one of my favorite memories was her going to Plateros with us. (See yesterday's blog for more about that).

St. Jude


I only did a close up of him so you can see some of the chips he got when he fell off the counter.

Since I will be cleaning most of tomorrow, or at least hope to, there probably won't be much for me to write. Maybe I'll write about why my patron saints are my patron saints. There's any idea.

If you've made it this far, congrats! Have an imaginary cookie to celebrate. Not everyone can get through an entire post. lol. Anyhoo, thanks for reading and God Bless. :D