patron saints

I ran across a post yesterday on Why I Am Catholic that suggested adopting a new patron saint for the upcoming year.  The author does a great job of explaining the whole reasoning behind it.  Worth a read!

Sounded good to me, so I decided to give it a spin.  Click here for an app that will assign you a random saint.  My patron saint, by virtue of my baptismal name, is St. Elizabeth of Hungary.  My great-grandmother emigrated (or is it immigrated?) to the United States from Hungary, and her name was Elizabeth.  So I've always felt that connection.  St. Michael and St. Anthony are two that I go to often, and St. Anne was my confirmation saint - mostly because I liked the name.  (Coincidentally, it is my BFF's name, but I didn't really know her then.)  Anyway, I digress.

So I decided this sounded interesting, said a quick prayer and clicked.  Who landed on my screen but St. Patrick? I have often felt a connection with him, too.  My grandfather is part Irish.  I remember a few years ago being at Mass on the Feast of St. Patrick and being struck with the certainty that I likely owe my Catholicism today to him and the works that he accomplished (with the help of the Holy Spirit) over a thousand years ago.  Who's to say that God wouldn't have intervened in some other way if things hadn't gone as planned with St. Pat, but it was somewhat of a lightbulb moment.  Anyway - he's over there in the sidebar, and I'll have another Saint who I can ask for prayers on a regular basis!

My boys have plenty of good baptismal patron saint names to pick from - Daniel, Francis, Alexander, and Bernard - but one has developed a special fondness of St. Anthony and the other thinks that St. Michael is pretty cool looking (probably because of the sword and the whole stabbing the devil thing). 

I had my oldest try out the random saint generator and St. Josemaria Escriva popped up on his screen.  I'll update when I get younger son to put down the X-box long enough to give this his attention. 

Updating to Add:  Finally I had a chance to have my younger teen click on the saint generator.  His saint - St. Matthias, the apostle.  We'll see how that works out for him. 

Give it a try?  Let me know who your new intercessor is?