I do so love having her as a special patron saint. I am still mystified that God showed me at an early age the life of this marvelous woman and permitted me a devotion to her.
Readers of this blog know well of my special relationship with the saint of the impossible. A few years ago I began publishing posts every so often inviting readers to email me (harvey@harveymillican.com) with their prayer requests. My hope was that someone would see the request and send me their intentions so that I might add it to my perpetual novena prayers to Rita. In the past two years I have been amazed as scores is readers have taken me up on that and I have personally witnessed through follow-up emails “impossible” things being granted. I use quotation marks because we know nothing is impossible with God.
Monday begins another round of nine days of prayer.
Send me your intentions and I will take them up and we will pray together.
She will help.
But do also look into the life of this saint and learn from her. To me, she is more than a patron of impossible causes. She is a model for all those who seek peace.
“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.”
St. Rita of Cascia, patron of the impossible and peacemaker, pray for us!
I graduated college in 1999 with my BA. Regular readers will note that I was at that time in the college seminary in Newark, yes, McCarrick’s Newark. When I entered at the age of 18 I was fairly naive about how seminaries operated. In Teddy’s joint, aside from the obvious rampant faggotry, it worked like this. Seminarians were instructed to take out federal student loans. Upon ordination, the archdiocese would pay off these loans and the new priest would then be indebted to the archbishop for life or thirty years, whichever came first.
I didn’t question this system. I just wanted to be a priest. And so I matriculated in to the much pricier major seminary and came within six credits of earning an MA before being given the boot, ostensibly for being Catholic. Six months later some broad named Sallie Mae started hitting on me. In other words, I got the bill. And boy, was it astronomical.
That’s around the time I started waking up and realized that the whole system was a sham – both the education-government complex and the archdiocese. I knew justice was not being met here. They got rid of me for not going along with their filth (which I had never bargained for) and then I got stuck with the tab. One might ask, “But didn’t you get an education out of it?” Sure. I even went back on my own to get that MA because I had started teaching and it would help boost my salary. But the two degrees coupled with a dollar will just about get you a cup of coffee at Tops Diner, as they say.
I started paying them back. I consolidated. I paid more back. Did I mention this was a lot of money?
And then as part of a work requirement I had to take out even more for another Masters Degree! Oh I had woken up but not fully yet. Ever wonder why I loathe the education system? As a student I had to teach myself and as a teacher I was barred from teaching the Truth.
Flash forward to 2018. I learned of a program the feds were running that would forgive the student loans of anyone who had made ten years of payments while also working for non-profits. Sounds like me, except, I had consolidated and put the loans in deferment for that second Masters. So I was just shy of the decade mark. I gave up.
And then the world ground to a halt in 2020. Absolutely no one had to pay anything to anyone for three years. That’s when I discovered there was a waiver allowing me to count the whole time as having been paid even though it clearly wasn’t because hey, lies or something.
I applied.
I contacted all of my previous employers. Again, I don’t agree with the system as a whole but if these loopholes are there, I’m taking them. After a year I found out that one of my past employers had left the phone number off of the form and it had been tossed.
Two months ago I set out on a final mission to get that one form corrected.
All the while, I was ramping up my petitions to my dear patron. “St. Rita, I pray for the total eradication of this debt.”
She was listening.
One month ago I learned that the form had been accepted and I now had well over ten years worth of payments under my belt in total. But there was one catch. The final caveat in the paperwork stated that I had to be currently employed by a non-profit to qualify. “Rats,” I thought. “What can we do about this now?”
I made one final push to St. Rita. “Please, dear friend, guide these documents into the hands of someone who is either stupid or who doesn’t care.”
This past weekend I received three roses as a gift from a friend. They were for my wife and me. Very pretty. I knew something was up as I had just really started storming heaven with this prayer.
This afternoon I opened my email.
“Congratulations and thank you for your service. At this time no further payments are required on this account.”
Glory be to God and thanks be to St. Rita because this was about as impossible as it gets! I’m having a Mass said in thanksgiving for her patronage.
My point in this long tale is to hopefully inspire you not to give up. “For nothing shall be impossible with God…”
Keep praying and know that my prayers for all of you remain in effect.
And now I can go to bed tonight knowing that the last vestige of anything still tying me to McCarrick’s seminary are finally burned.
St. Rita, patron of impossible causes, pray for us!
And look! Mother Cabrini (feast day today) lurks in the background. 😂
PS: those other two roses I got? I’m convinced they’re for the other two big intentions I’ve had going for a while. Have courage and have faith.
First… Today was the feast of the great Saint Therese of Lesieux, or as my missal calls her, “Teresa of the Infant Jesus”. See below. I hope she showered you with roses today. I didn’t get any but that’s cool.
As always, friends, I continue to pray for your intentions in my St. Rita novena (another saint who shares the rose as a symbol). I hope you also keep my intentions in your prayers. Of late I have come to realize some important lessons. As one begins the novena prayers (or at least the specific set I use), one asks the Holy Ghost to guide us in forming our intentions. In others words, I pray that the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity keep me from seeking after things that are not of God’s Will. Rather, I ask Him to help me to pray for the things that are God’s Will. And of late I have begun to realize that perhaps some of my own intentions (in the offing for years now some of them) are simply not a part of God’s plan for me. Don’t get me wrong, they are not bad things per se. I think what has helped me in this knowledge is something I read from St. Therese years ago. I want to give credit but do not have the book in front of me. Suffice to say that it was in a book called Fulton Sheen’s Saint Therese.
The book is a collection of talks that Sheen gave to a Carmel once. One thing that stands out in my mind is his description of Therese and her child-like love of God. It seems that the Little Flower once remarked that she “wanted to be as a plaything in the hands of God”. In other words, she saw herself as a rag doll given to a child on Christmas. If that child was pleased to make the rag doll the center of their universe, then so be it. If, however, that child felt like tossing the rag doll into a toy box never to be remembered, then that was also fine for her. The important thing was that she belong to God.
Sometimes I can really identify with that rag doll…
In other news, apparently Cardinal Burke, et al. held a press conference? They must not have said the words I was hoping to here or I would have heard it by now.
Also, the antipope blathered on about the ratification of adultery and sodomy again today. Also, water is wet.
Folks, I got off all that social media nonsense a while ago. Sorry but I'm not on Twitbook, Facepalm, YouHu, WingWang or any of the others. Maybe an event will happen to make me change my mind like Peter and Paul coming down with flaming swords and commanding it be so. Until then, read the blog and if you feel a comment is in order or you feel like sharing a tip or suggestion for a topic, email me at harvey@harveymillican.com.
Harvey Millican's Blog: Musings of a Trad Dad 