October 19, 2007

When the Saints Come Marching into Your Living Room

My daughter goes to Catholic school. I am not Catholic. Many things about the Catholic church confuse me to no end. That’s why when Big I brought home the important assignment of choosing a Patron Saint for an All Saint’s Day service, I was completely lost. As I often do, I called another Mom who happens to be Catholic to help me out. She explained to me that the students can pick any saint they want. They can choose one that has their name. They can choose one that has a feast day near their birthday. Pretty much anything goes.

In addition to researching their saint and finding some connection with the saint, the children also have to dress up like their chosen saint and do an oral report. Did I mention that I can’t sew? Getting a karate patch to stay on my gi is about the extent of my skills and that doesn’t mean I don’t stab myself half a dozen times. Needless to say, this project was causing me great stress.

When Big I brought the assignment home, I immediately turned to the internet. I found many helpful web pages, but finding a saint for Big I was not going well. They told us to try to avoid saints whose entire life was tragic, and those who had lives that ended in stonings, beheadings, etc. It’s not exactly an easy task. Then I found Saint Catherine of Bologna or Catherine de Vigri. She is the patron saint of art/artists and was also a writer. I told Big I a little about her and she took great interest. Unlike many of the saints who suffered horrible deaths, Saint Catherine of Bologna died of an illness, so I didn’t have to give her any scary details either. I chose to leave out the visions of Satan that Saint Catherine apparently suffered, telling her instead about the holy visions she also had.

I hadn’t shown Big I anything on the internet about Saint Catherine of Bologna. I hadn’t told her about any of Saint Catherine’s paintings, only saying that she was an artist, which is why what happened the other day is so remarkable.

Big I came home from school, and as she often does, she sprawled out on the floor and started drawing. She usually draws princesses and fairies, and an occasional pirate. But on this particular day she drew this:

I asked her what she was drawing and she said, "Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus." Hmm, that’s different, I thought, so I asked her what made her decide to change up the usual repertoire of princesses and princes. She said, "I don’t know. It just came to me in my head." I was impressed with the halo’s around all of their heads (something she hadn’t done before in any drawing) and thought the picture was definitely a keepsake.

It was later that evening that it occurred to me that the drawing Big I did was familiar in some way, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

The next night I went to the school for an informational meeting about the Saint assignment. I couldn’t help but feel entirely out of place. While the other Mom’s were crossing themselves, I sat there wondering how we were going to raise our daughter. Would we raise her Catholic? Was I always going to feel like an outsider? Would I forever be sitting at informational meetings because I was completely lost? Would I always be afraid to say "Oh my God" in the presence of the other Mom’s, and what if I swore? I was getting myself all worked up and stressing entirely too much.

I came home and went back to work on researching Saint Catherine of Bologna. I was searching for images so I could get an idea of what kind of costume I was going to have to come up with when I found this (image from www.csupomona.edu):

This is a painting that Saint Catherine of Bologna did after she had a vision. Because I thought maybe I was reading into it a bit much, I sent both pictures via email to a friend of mine who teaches in a Catholic school. It gave her chills too. The blue head covering, the halo’s, even the angle of her nose, mouth and the blushed cheeks, all seem eerily similar. I mean, I know Big I is only six, and her drawing certainly looks like it was done by a six-year old, but the similarities that do exist between the two are just amazing to me.

I’m thinking that maybe this assignment is speaking, not only to Big I, but to me somehow. It just seems too coincidental that Big I drew what she drew when she drew it. Perhaps we’re having a little saintly intervention in my living room; but I think it’s quite clear that we chose the right saint for Big I.

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