Can a Non-Catholic Have a Patron Saint?

 

Have you ever felt like an angel was looking over your shoulder? Did you ever get a sudden flash of inspiration when you most needed it? Have you ever prayed or concentrated hard on something and it came to pass? Did you ever feel like everything was hopeless, but suddenly you saw a way out of your predicament? Maybe it was your spirit guide.

This week on the podcast, we are talking about spirit guides…who they are, and how they help us. I don’t want to give everything away, but let’s just say that they are sometimes more or different than what you think. As I share in the podcast, even though I am not Catholic, I have a special connection to Saint Jude the apostle. Also known as Thaddeus and Lebbaeus, but not to be confused with Judas Iscariot (Jesus’s betrayer), St. Jude was one of the original 12 disciples and is associated with hopeless causes – the patron saint of the impossible.

I came to believe in Saint Jude many years ago while facing a legal battle that would have devastated me financially. I was wrongfully sued, but I was up against a company owned by lawyers, and I had no evidence to support my position. My bank accounts had been frozen, I couldn’t pay my bills, and my husband probably would have divorced me if I had lost. It was that bad. I cried out for help on my Facebook page, and someone (oh, how I wish I could remember who it was) suggested I pray a novena to St. Jude. I found the prayer online, and I started praying. 

On the day of my court appearance, a very good friend helped me smudge my house while we repeated a spiritual warfare prayer, and once I got to the courthouse, I was sequestered in an antechamber to await my turn. I was left alone, so I just started praying. Every prayer I knew, but especially the Saint Jude prayer. After a while, my attorney popped in to tell me I could go home – the previous case on the docket was taking longer than normal to resolve and he didn’t think I needed to wait around. The judge was going to hear my case during a break in the other trial, but he only wanted to hear from the lawyers at this point. So I went home. I was frustrated, dejected, and fearful. I wanted this to be over, but I was afraid of the outcome. I kept praying for the rest of the day.

As it so happens, my case did eventually come up before the judge in one of those breaks, and my attorney submitted my rebuttal against this shady pack of lawyers. He had a tough case…he had to prove that I was never served papers to appear in court more than two years prior (which I wasn’t) and that the lawyers had seized my assets without due process.

Do you know how hard it is to prove you never got served? It’s nearly impossible – especially when the process server signs an affidavit saying she did. But I was fortunate, or Saint Jude was listening, because the judge believed my attorney and dismissed the case, ordering the pack of ruthless liars…I mean, lawyers…to release my assets. But the worry wasn’t over yet. We may have won this leg of the battle by releasing the lien on my home and the levy on my bank accounts, but I still had to prove that I didn’t owe them enough money to buy a brand-new sports car. 

This too, was a bit of a hopeless case, because I had to prove the impossible yet again…this time that I never had a credit card with a particular company, and I did not owe them any money. My previous attorney handed my case off to another lawyer who was more experienced in this sort of thing, and he promised to do his best but offered little hope that it would go my way. How do you prove that something doesn’t exist? The attorney said our best chance was that the company would be willing to settle for a smaller amount of money…even though it was not my debt! And somehow, amidst a litany of prayers to Saint Jude, I won the case! The entire thing was dismissed!

By this time, I was convinced that Saint Jude was looking out for me. A friend made me a necklace and I wore it often. When I wasn’t wearing it, it hung over my desk in a protective position or from the rear-view mirror of my car when I traveled long distances. I bought St. Jude candles at the Mexican market down the street. I made donations to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. And I told everyone who needed help to pray to St. Jude. 

That was seven years ago, and I’ve been a believer in Saint Jude ever since. These days I have statuettes, candles, and images of my favorite saint throughout my house, and I invoke him regularly for things both big and small. Saint Jude has helped me find things that are impossible to find, locate items I have lost, and most recently gave my family a miraculous hope in a possible cure/remission of my husband’s stage 4 lung cancer. I will never doubt that St. Jude watches over me when I ask for his help, and I have promised to bear witness to his gifts for the rest of my life.

Of course, not everyone has such a profound experience with their spirit guides. It could be anything from a gentle nudge in the right direction when you’re trying to make an important decision, a sign that you can’t ignore, that little niggle when you’re taking a test that helps you guess the right answer when you aren’t sure, or a smack-down wake-up call to turn your life around. Whatever it is, I hope you embrace it. Call on your spirit guide for help. Stay open to the messages they are trying to send you. And most importantly, celebrate and be grateful when they answer.

Do you have a spirit guide? Who do you turn to spiritually when you are in need? In what ways have they helped you or answered your call? We’d love to hear about it! Please share your story in the comments below, or join us over on our Facebook Group, MMC Chat.

A Spiritual Journey

Religion is a touchy topic for most. I was in a physical fight once when I was a kid over the concept of life on other planets. In case you were wondering, I believe in life on other planets, and I defended my belief with a punch to the chest. The other person’s argument: if life existed on other planets, it would be mentioned in the Bible. As I said, a touchy topic.

I can only speak to my experience with religion because it directly influenced how I turned out and how I live my life now. That is to say, I don’t consider myself religious. Over the years, I have been called many things such as a “dirty Atheist” and a “devil worshiper,” but really I am none of those things. My beliefs are simply different than the average small-town person. That is where it all started…in a small town.

I was born a Southern Baptist. At least, that’s all I remember growing up. My parents weren’t very religious but my dad’s mom, Granny, took me to church every Sunday at a small, country, Baptist church. In that church, I only knew love, acceptance, and understanding. When I was in fourth grade, Granny moved to town, and we started attending the Baptist church near her house. The difference between the country church and the church in town was huge. For example, it wasn’t uncommon in the country for the farmers to wear overalls or dusty jeans to church, but in town, it was frowned upon if you dressed less than your “Sunday best.” I remember the church ladies treated Granny differently because she didn’t wear expensive dresses and was not perfectly made up. I noticed this type of prejudice at a young age as well as other subtle things within the church that were disagreeable to me.

At that young age, I began to question things about the beliefs that no one else around me seemed to question, like life on other planets, as well as the behavior and intolerance for anything different. At the same time, the young people were pressured to seal their beliefs through baptism. Enough was enough. I wanted to believe what I wanted to believe, and not what I was pressured to believe. I wanted to ask the big questions. I wanted to be spiritual in my beliefs and not confined by them.

What does it mean to be spiritual? According to Dr. Maya Spencer, “spirituality involves the recognition of a feeling or sense or belief that there is something greater than myself, something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater whole of which we are part is cosmic or divine in nature.”

In other words, I believe there is more to the world than meets the eye, and I am still evolving and exploring my beliefs 28 years later. I was once told that because I was pressured into being baptized, I will always be a Christian and I can’t “take it back,” but the freedom of choice was taken from me in that regard. What I can choose is how I live my life in the here and the now while valuing myself and being open-minded to anything and everything that comes my way. That is the true lesson that I learned growing up in the church: what I did not want to be.

Would I be different if I grew up in a different Christian religion? Maybe. Probably not.

You are probably asking yourself, “what is her religion, again?” I don’t have one. My spirituality is a patchwork of many different beliefs, but I recently took a “What Religion am I?” quiz* (just for fun) and my result was: Mahayana Buddhism.

I want to hear from our readers. Are you spiritual? What does being spiritual mean to you? Let’s continue the conversation on our Facebook Group: MMC Chat.

*You can take the “What Religion am I?” quiz here.

What the universe was telling me...

Hi everyone, it’s Christen here! This week on the blog and the podcast we are discussing Oracle cards. I hope you have had a chance to listen to our podcast; if you haven’t, be sure to check it out. Each week on Wednesday, we release a new episode, but occasionally the podcast will have a fun episode we call Excuse Me While I Read My Tarot. The name is funny to me because sometimes I just have to stop what I am doing and conduct a little reading. I know that my mom can’t start her day without her daily reading as well. 

I got my first oracle card deck shortly after my first tarot deck. I have used those same decks for almost 2 decades. This year though, I decided that I wanted to add more to my options. I had been keeping an eye on this one set in particular and when I saw it at a holistic fair several weeks back I couldn't resist it. 

The reason that this deck was so tempting was because it was an entire deck dedicated to my spirit animal, the unicorn. I have always been obsessed with unicorns, but had never considered them my spirit animal until recently. I loved them as a small child and all through my teen years up to young adulthood. I would collect images online and download them to a file on my computer or pin them to my wall. For a while there, it seemed that unicorns became less popular and my love for them, although it did not fade, was dimmed by adulthood. I sometimes wonder if I just stopped seeing them. But, I found myself “secretly” loving them. It seemed shameful to love something so childish, and with my arrival into the working world, anything fantasy, cartoonish or too colorful needed to be kept private. I wanted to fit in with corporate America to be taken seriously. Somewhere in there I lost myself. Too quickly did I become this cookie-cutter call center employee. Black pants, black shoes, and dress shirt. I would have loved to be able to wear a unicorn shirt to work, but I was too afraid to be myself. 

In recent years, it seems that everywhere I turn, there is a unicorn – it’s back in style. Not just kid’s attire, but things made for grown women and men, too. Does everyone love unicorns as much as me? Heck, they must, because it seems that there is a unicorn printed on just about everything these days. Did the unicorn go away and make a return, or was I just ignoring it for all this time? Was it a little reminder to me from the universe that it was “ok” to be myself? Quite possibly. 

So since I have been feeling not quite myself lately, I thought it was perfect timing to purchase that unicorn oracle deck I had been fantasizing about. I have been ready to invite the unicorn back into my life. I feel that with all the changes that have occurred in my life, I have slowly forgotten who I am and what brings me joy. Typically the unicorn represents uniqueness, surreal beauty and purity among many other qualities. For me, the unicorn represents self love and acceptance, mystery, divinity, creativity, joy, adventure, and childlike wonder.

The oracle deck itself is very lovely and I feel it represents all of those qualities. The deck was created by Diana Cooper and illustrated by Marjolein Kruijt. There are 44 cards in the deck and they have a full range of interpretations. My favorite card so far is “Create Your Vision,” which depicts a unicorn (of course) but along with it, a winding gold staircase leading up to a mysterious palace in another realm. The card tells you to do what makes your heart sing, and that you are being nudged forward. All of the cards have uplifting messages, and the handbook that is included, offers several ways to use the cards for personal insight.

​​

Diana is a well known author of oracle cards and books varying from angels, mythical creatures, ascension, and personal development. On her website, you can have a reading with her oracle cards. She has 9 decks to choose from and you can pull up to three cards. This is a great way to sample her decks before you buy, plus you can get a little reading without having to provide your email to get the results! It's also a great way to see what oracle cards are all about. 

We hope that you check out our podcast coming out this Wednesday where we dive a little deeper into oracle cards and our ways of using them as an intuitive tool. Do you have a favorite oracle card deck? We would love to hear your thoughts. Join in on the conversation here on our FaceBook chat.