In case you're interested, the patron saint I chose is St. Agnes of Prague. My sponsor asked me how I came up with this lesser-known saint, and the funny version is I was looking up a list of patrons and saw "laundresses." I thought to myself, hey, I do a lot of laundry, so I decided to investigate all the saints on that short list, which included St. Clare of Assisi. St. Agnes of Prague was a member of the "Poor Clares" order. But the rest of the story is that my Catholic grandmother (my mom's mom who died in 1998) had wanted all of us girls to be named Agnes, and my parents ignored her. They also didn't raise us kids in the Church like Grandma wanted. So when I started looking for a patron saint, I had it in my head that it would be nice to find an Agnes to aspire after, and sort of make two of Grandma's wishes come true at once. I was impressed with Agnes of Prague's generosity and simple ministries for the poor (such as cooking or mending and washing their clothing). She also had an on-going correspondence with St. Clare, and she was a relative of St. Elisabeth of Hungary, the "name-saint" I chose for my baby daughter. All this to say, St. Agnes of Prague "felt right" to me, and I hope she doesn't mind taking me on.

My husband, incidentally, chose St. Columcille (pronounced, he tells me, "Collum-keel"). And since my son has a penchant for naming every stuffed animal, wild bird, stray cat, fly, mosquito or other creature "Hubert," I've decided that it's unusual for a 3.5-yr-old to have latched onto this particular name with such tenacity, so maybe it's a spiritual sign that I am supposed to teach him more about St. Hubert of Liege. Or is that me lapsing into some old, Pentacostal wackiness?

I'm comfortable with learning about these saints and aspiring after them and even celebrating their Feast Days. Praying to them is still a hurdle for me. I feel awkward, and I honestly don't know what to say. If there isn't already a written prayer for the saint, then I wouldn't know where to begin.

I have been trying to say the Rosary. I was so often interrupted, that I gave up for a while. This morning, I was able to pray the whole thing from start to finish early on before everybody else was awake. The baby cried out just as I announced the second Mystery, but I held my breath and interjected a short prayer that she'd go back to sleep, and I guess she did. So I am going to try to do this every morning. I used to do sit-ups and other light exercises...hmmm....maybe I'll have to set my alarm 20 minutes earlier so I can pray and then do the sit-ups and stuff.

I have high hopes for the effect saying the Rosary daily will have on my life. Not sure exactly what those hopes are, but there is a great sense of anticipation in my soul when I sit down with my beautiful rose-colored beads, courtesy of my dear friend and sponsor.

--Sparki