~ Encouragement through our safe distance and stay-at-home measures

This is meant as encouragement through our safe distance and stay-at-home measures.   Isolation and solitude can be useful to us all as we pray to our Lord Jesus Christ for his mercy.

During this Coronavirus pandemic, we can ask for prayers from the following saints:

Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Our Lady Undoer of Knots, Pope Francis’s favorite Blessed Virgin Mary devotion.    Our Lady Undoer of Knots (also called Our Lady Untier of Knots) helps undo knots of strife, discord and worry.

Respiratory Ailment Saints:  Two Saints for help with breathing and respiratory issues are Saint Blaise and Saint Bernardino of Siena. Saint Blaise Feast day is February 2^nd, when the church has the Blessing of the Throats.

There are images of Saint Blaise in Croatia in Dubrovnik and Lokrum and Mont Negro.  Croatia: Herzigovinia - Medjugorje in Yugoslavia – to climb Medjugorje Hill is phenomenal and worth the trip someday.  My mom and dad went there three times, being the leaders of the trip twice.  My father, a man of faith and one to not look for “signs” was able to look at the sun and saw the host, the Blessed Sacrament, in the sun.  He thought, once I get home to the states I will be able to look at the sun.  Of course, he could not.

The patron of science, Saint Albertus Magnus, to conquer Cornavirus we will need help from our scientists. 

Healing Saints:  Raphael the Archangel and Padre Pio.  St. Pio saved a child who nearly died from swallowing a magic marker cap, so he is looked to for prayers for healing of children with health problems.   Archangel Raphael is a healer who makes meetings happy, conjures up love and heals, among other things. 

Saint Agatha is the patron of nurses and Saint Luke is the patron of doctors - both are part of the healing we need.

Hermit Saints:  Solitude is peaceful.  Many of the hermit saints spent time in caves by themselves, or being alone in their own ways, or they gathered with animals.

 One hermit saint is St. Rosalie. She’s from Palermo, Italy, the capital of Sicily.  Saint Rosalie became a hermit for an odd reason. The legend says she was so beautiful she left the town of Palermo and lived in a cave so people would quit staring at her all the time.

Another hermit is St. Kevin of Glendalough, Ireland.  A monk he knew saw an otter that St. Kevin happened to be friends with and said aloud “Oh, look, an otter. I will grab him and make him into a wallet!”  So, Kevin stood up, went over, and whispered to the otter, “You need to get out of here because that monk has designs on you and it’s not pretty.” So, the otter ran away and went to live in another town and the monk’s plan was thwarted.

Another time St. Kevin was in Glendalough, praying. He had his palms up in the air and was holding his head up to the sky too.  He was praying and a blackbird singing in the light of day came along.  The blackbird flew over, went and stood on St. Kevin’s wrist ….. then it laid an egg in his hand!  So, then St. Kevin stood there with his arms outstretched in prayer, squinting into the sun, until that egg hatched!  That’s love for God’s creation!

Amazing things can happen as we pray alone!