If you’re following along and keeping score, St. Rita has notched another win today. From my ongoing novena prayer list I have just removed another intention meaning… She has delivered yet again.
This one was very sweet and personal to me. One of my nephews was looking for a better work schedule so he could spend more time with his growing family and get to Adoration more frequently. Not only did his schedule get changed abruptly, but so did his job. He got promoted to detective today!
St. Rita of Cascia, stained glass
Now, don’t take away from this a false sense of hope.
No, I want you to take away from this a very real sense of hope.
If you have been praying for some thing for a long time and it has not come to you, remember one of the first “rules” of prayer. “We pray to change ourselves, not to change God,” as Lewis said. Perhaps step back and begin with a prayer asking Our Lord to send His Holy Ghost to direct you how to pray and for what.
Either way, the novena continues and I have confidence in St. Rita’s power to intercede in impossible cases.
St. Rita, pray for us!
PS: More to come over the weekend. I’m on a bit of vacation visiting with a family member right now.
There is a line in the novena to St. Rita that I pray that has always carried special meaning for me.
“We promise if our petitions are granted to make known your favor and to glorify God for His gift.”
The Catholic Devotional Life
Earlier today, as I was finally cleaning off the top of my dresser after a year of collecting loose change, cuff links, and knick knacks, I happened upon a few items I did not know I had in my possession. If you have ever had a special devotion to a particular saint this will not surprise you in the least. I found that I had four separate medals of my Cascian intercessor , apparently acquired in Italy by one of my nieces who had traveled there several years ago for a semester abroad.
So let’s talk about devotions and the life of a Catholic. Prior to the middle of the 1960’s (gee, not sure what happened then) Catholics were raised to be in relationship with the saints. We were taught to pray to our guardian angel and to converse with him, to call upon our friends in heaven because they are God’s friends first. It is said that Padre Pio did not know until he was ten years-old that other people couldn’t see their angels, such was his devotion.
Devotion and Memory
And then the Catholic world forgot. To be sure there was a malicious force at work helping to suppress that memory. But memory is a beautiful gift from God. Like physical strength, it requires some exercise on our part to develop more fully. The ancients knew how to memorize epic poetry on the first hearing. They trained their memories and knew how to actively listen. Likewise the memory of our devotional life must be fostered. We must worship God in the manner He chooses (the Holy Mass) and listen in silence to Him. We must work at our devotions. Sometimes, like the occasional miraculous physical healing where the lame man regains his strength, God can intervene to remind us of what we lost and what we forgot. We must then thank God for that grace and jump back into fostering our devotional life.
Friends, remember your devotions. Make the saints and angels a part of your life. Those medals remind me to keep going and to continue to seek her prayers. I see them as a gift from God to continue in my devotion. Today in particular I see them as a nudge to continue in my novena prayers. Another nine days it is! Perhaps there are four particular people who need these prayers. Who knows? God knows.
Remembering that I will make known her favor and glorify God for his gifts, I share the days events with you and again invite any intentions that I might add to my prayer.
God bless us, the Virgin protect us, and St. Rita, pray for us!
Tonight, simply a prayer of thanksgiving and another in my posts of ongoing praise of Our Lord and His beloved servant Rita of Cascia.
Almost two weeks ago I began to pray the novena to St. Rita. I’ve prayed it so many times in my life I have it committed to memory. She has never let me down. I invited readers to pray the novena as well and many responded with emails asking me to add their intentions to my own novena. This I did with gratitude. I most humbly ask others to add my intentions to their own novenas to this saint of the impossible.
This past Saturday I concluded day 9. A former student – a young man with whom I have become good friends – had been looking for a job and, more importantly, a wife. He wants a trad girl. He wants lots of babies. He wants nothing more than to take care of them, help them get to heaven and himself along the way. I didn’t tell him I had added his intention, simply prayed it.
The shrine to St. Rita in my home. Originally in a church named in her honor in west Texas, this shrine was rescued from wreckovation by a devout woman who kept it for 30 years until her daughter informed her of my devotion. She then gifted it to me.
On Saturday night as we sat in my yard with a few cocktails and cigs I suddenly remembered another friend was having a get-together. If you’re keeping score, that is exactly two friends I have. Something about being abrasive or something… I asked the young man if he wanted to join me for an hour at the older friend’s party. He came along out of a sense of obligation. Within minutes he had been approached by another guy I know who works in construction in a very lucrative job. 20 minutes later my friend found me to tell me that he had been offered a job.
I told him at this point that it was Rita’s doing. He kind of scoffed. I looked up heavenward and laughed.
Two days later, still thinking the job offerer had been drinking and speaking out of turn, my friend decided to give him a call. Well, at this point St. Rita decided to toy with him. Do you know that within 36 hours, the deal has been not only inked but moved along so rapidly that this morning, on almost no notice, my friend boarded a flight to California where he will live and work at that amazing job for the next five months. After that he’ll return to Texas where he will continue in that job as a supervisor.
Friends, pray this novena. She will come through for you.
I’m still waiting on a few favors I requested for myself but I have confidence. Again I ask, please pray for me and my intentions. I greatly appreciate it.
St. Rita of Cascia, patron of impossible causes, pray for us all!
Friends, I recently began another novena to “my” saint – St. Rita of Cascia, saint of the impossible. I began these nine days of prayer for several close intentions of mine but also because of a new friend who told me that he had started this novena after reading about St. Rita on my blog.
Let me tell you, with God all things are possible. His beloved servant Rita is held aloft by the Church as a patroness of the things we think impossible. I attest that she will intercede and she will deliver. Of my several intentions, one was already delivered today. And these are no small petitions.
Our Lady of Good Counsel and St. Rita
So I invite you, whether your prayer is to be able to continue going to the TLM daily in these dark times or it is to conceive a child when even doctors have told you that you cannot or to reconcile a wayward spouse; I know that Our Lord wants you to make your impossible intentions known to Him. He already knows the secrets of your heart before your heart was formed. But He asks you to give these things to Him to demonstrate your faith in and love for Him.
Friends, I am happy to report that this evening, at my parish, I met a man who had reached out to me via my blog’s email address. He figured out – using the clues I’ve dropped – that we belong to the same parish and that we both were interested in building a network of like-minded trad Catholic men.
If you haven’t already done so, Catholic dads, reach out. Find the men in your parish who will help you 1) protect your families when everything goes south and 2) continue to worship in the Traditional rites or the Church.
And to fulfill a longstanding promise I made, please pray to St. Rita, patroness of the impossible, for all your impossible needs. She will intercede for you with great results.
St. Rita of Cascia, stained glass, Cathedral of St. Patrick, Fort Worth, Tx
Late last night we made it to our first destination. We had traveled here to attend the baptism of a friend’s first grandchild and yours truly was asked to be godfather. This is a task I take quite seriously and an honor for me. It doesn’t hurt that my precious baby goddaughter is adorable beyond belief. I now have fifteen godchildren.
The reason I did not specify where this took place is because sometimes I think we need to stay a little below the radar. Many of you will understand. And the point is larger than all that. Let me explain…
Before we set out on this journey I had asked Blessed Mother to obtain for me the grace of being able to come to daily Latin mass every day of our travels. finding a TLM anywhere can be a challenge, especially when one is driving cross-country. But I know many Catholics who won’t even search for the Novus Ordo when they go on vacation for even the Sunday mass and we must pray for them. I taught the faith for many years. A lot of Catholic school alums weren’t even taught the basics of obligation let alone the penalty of mortal sin. I never assume that anyone else has been given to know what I have or that I know half as much as the man next to me. Pray and beg the Lord for an increase in charity and humility.
I consecrated to Mary control of my exterior goods. She is a loving mother and she will take care of her children. So far, she has delivered.
Today we found ourselves invited to mass in a chapel at an institution of higher learning. The priest was a young monk who had graduated several years back. He belongs to a monastery that only says the vetus ordo. And… there’s my TLM and my first blessing from a new priest! Toss in a new Catholic in the baptism and this fifth Sunday after Easter was most definitely a happy day and I am a happy man.
Tomorrow’s mass is already scheduled.
God bless us and the Virgin protect us! Our Lady of Revelation, pray for us.
PS: Today was also the feast of my favorite saint, St. Rita of Cascia. I met my wife on the ninth day of a novena to this saint of the impossible. Turn to her with your impossible causes. St. Rita, we love you. Pray for us!
There, I’ve said it. And you can take that to the bank.
Setting the Goals
Harvey Millican is also a dad who adores his kids. Allow me if you will to drift for a moment to a place in the not-too-distant past. I was in my late 20’s (41 now) when I really began to give up on the hope of ever meeting a woman who shared my faith, got my sense of humor, and was stunningly beautiful. While I figured there were still a few solid Catholic women out there who hadn’t joined the Nashville Dominicans and I was pretty sure there might be a handful of women who would find my absurdist rantings mildly amusing I was not sure that any of the beautiful women of the world would be willing to offer an act of supreme condescension and go out with me.
You see, I wanted a family. I had, just a few years earlier, been studying for the priesthood and had been prepared to make the sacrifice of giving up family life. When I left the seminary I was filled with the fleeting thought that perhaps God’s plan for me was now to follow in the example set by my wonderful parents and raise a family of my own. But whom would I marry; or rather, who would ever marry me? See above paragraph for the genesis of this conundrum. It’s a vicious cycle.
Jacked St. Joseph. Model for MEN, model for ME.
In my final act of desperation I turned in prayer to the patron of impossible causes – St. Rita of Cascia. I began a novena at her shrine in Philadelphia. Nine days later I met a woman with strong faith, a questionable sense of humor, and poor eyesight. Bingo! We got married at that shrine in due time and within the first two and a half years of our married life God had blessed us with a son and a daughter. I have no idea what happened after that. We promised to be open to children and we always have been. But I guess God had other plans for us. We started taking road trips with the kids. I started documenting these trips and a blog was born.
A few years later the ticking time bomb that is my spine exploded and life sort of came to a grinding halt for a bit. I had a second lumbar fusion. I got depressed for a while thinking of how I wasn’t being the kind of dad I wanted to be to my kids. I’ve never been athletic. I’ve never been really strong, agile, quick. Having kids highlighted these deficiencies. I really felt it the first time my kids wanted me to play Twister, ride bikes, and squat 450. They’re pretty demanding kids. But after a few years of doing nothing about it and gaining weight and starting to feel sorry for myself and remorseful for my wife who had to look at me every day I decided to do something. Anything at all.
Figuring It Out
I tried running like a co-worker was doing. He was pretty jacked. That was a disaster. Apparently “You can’t run that extra mile if you’re puffing away on those cigarettes.” I had to choose. I chose tar and nicotine.
I tried Greco-Roman wrestling like my older brothers had done in high school. They were pretty not-jacked but strong as oxen and impressive. Apparently this should not be done with strangers in the produce aisle at Kroger. Also, those singlets are obscene.
I tried that little paddleball thing you buy at the dollar store like my mom. She’s got phenomenal eye-hand coordination. Thanks to genetics, I was good at it but burned negative calories.
In fact I tried anything and everything until I settled on some advice I found from a most reliable source – a meme. Under a picture of a typical 98 lb. weakling listening to Charles Atlas was a caption that read “What’s that? You want to get huge? Pick up a bunch of heavy stuff, put it down, repeat.”
Identifying with the dork in that cartoon I determined that weightlifting would be my thing.
Quests and New Quests
And for the past 14 months I have been lifting weights. It wasn’t until I heard a sermon from an amazing priest, though, that I realized this needed to be a spiritual pursuit in order to be effective. In other words, I should not do this for me alone. I should do this for me AND for my wife and kids. Lifting weights isn’t about gettin’ swole so you can preen in front of a mirror (although that’s kinda’ cool). Lifting weights should be about God’s purpose for manliness and fatherhood. I should do this specifically because it’s hard. Doing hard things is the hallmark of true manliness. And we do hard things to discipline our bodies so we can discipline our souls. And we discipline our bodies and souls so we can give away our lives without thinking to our wives and children; so that the hardest thing in life to do – dying for the sake of another – comes freely, quickly, and with total love.
With that in mind, weightlifting became both a quest and a joy. I’ll admit, it’s fun. I really enjoy it in the same way I hated running. No lungs exploded. I could wear fairly comfortable clothes. I started to get swole. Heh. That last part was particularly gratifying. Again, see above paragraph about why any woman in her sober mind would have given me a second glance. And I say that only half in jest but I’ve certainly never thought very highly of myself and even there more from a desire to tamp down pride through a humility that is sometimes self-effacing but very often false.
Along the way as I was putting on muscle and burning off fat I began to look for more “difficult” things to do. Remember, doing the hard things because they are hard is good for us guys. I had to remind myself not to get too into this. There were nights I could have skipped the gym to spend more time with the family but I always thought I was doing this for them. As for those “gentle” reminders of which I spoke, believe me, on the occasions where I’d be super proud of my accomplishments and post a video or two of me knocking out a dozen pull ups in the gym or attempting some other such thing that I simply couldn’t do yesterday (and that 99.9% of men half my age can’t do today) I’d always get the one or two snide comments insinuating that it was “no big deal” or that the commenter “was able to do three times that many and with better form” and I’d find myself knocked down a few pegs. and it was all good.
But those other things? Well… I picked up a jump rope one day. Not knowing what this strange device was and unable to find a pair of shoes large enough to lace with it, I hit it against a rock. Then I looked up a Youtube clip and discovered a cool trick. Apparently you can swing this thing over your head and jump over it. I got really good at doing that.
I busted out my old trusty kettlebell. Remember that thing? Developed by the Pontifical Swiss Guard in the 17th century to punish heretics, the kettlebell is also good for building strong bodies. Again, thanks to Youtube (and in this case Instagram) I began to incorporate explosive movements into my workouts. I got really good at that as well.
And finally I discovered the thing I just spent 1,069 words to get to. Sorry for that. While scrolling through both Youtube and Instagram I began to notice a whole lot of posts about people doing calisthenics. OK, my first thought on hearing that word was of Jane Fonda in a ridiculously high cut leotard prancing about to Let’s Get Physical. Patently, calisthenics is not that. Not exactly. Calisthenics has to do with using bodyweight movements to build strength, endurance, you know, all that good stuff I was looking for. Remember, the whole point was to do hard things so I could be a better man and in so doing be the best dad I can be to the two saints-in-training God gave me. Hell, He only gave me two of them. He must have felt I needed the time to work on getting this right. Ultimately, though, what calisthenics looks like is not Jane Fonda but badass dudes who are certainly shredded but not in any kind of “Sammy Sosa on roids” way, doing incredibly difficult-looking things. The first time I saw a series of posts on Youtube of one of these guys doing handstand push-ups and planches I was sold. Sure, I didn’t think there was a snowball’s chance in hell of me actually doing these things what with my twice-fused lower spine; but if I’ve learned nothing over the past few years it’s that God’s grace is truly sufficient and for everything else there’s Percocet. So I prayed like the Dickens and had my pills at the ready.
“Father in heaven, I thank you for sharing Your gift of paternity with me, your humble servant. In St. Joseph, you have given me an example of a truly good man who cared for his family, for Your Incarnate Son and His Immaculate Mother. I pray through his intercession for a clean heart, a pure mind, and a chaste body. I ask for the gift of great physical strength that I might protect and provide for my family. Hitting the Powerball would also be nice. Amen.”
My daughter has a gymnastics mat and we have an 18′ diameter trampoline in the yard. I started to think I could tackle this. I watched dozens of videos on the topic. I set a few goals. While continuing to “lift heavy stuff” in the gym and “jump over the flying rope” I would attempt first to master a wall-assisted handstand. After that I would try the same but add in push-ups to the handstand. Then I’d try freestanding handstands. I didn’t know if any of this was remotely possible and I may have been consuming a glass of box wine when I dreamed this up. Lastly, I would try to nail a backflip by year’s end. I reached out to an old friend who informed me that I “probably know more about fitness now than he does” and the he “wouldn’t be much help”. He then said he had to wash his hair or something and take his daughter’s rabbit for a walk. I reached out to a newer friend who’s been part of my Exodus 90 prayer group. This guy was, of late, a gym teacher who specializes in calisthenics and in particular handstands. When asked if he could help me figure out the basic handstand his words to me were “No.” I think he might come round.
See, I even kept my shirt tucked in (and on).
Where on earth is all of this going and how does it involve the Passion of Christ? I never said it did.
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 