>Today is the start of the novena to St. Anthony!

Now St. Anthony (of Padua) is a FAVORITE of mine, a patron who has been a faithful intercessor for me!

His feast day is my birthday, so I feel a particular connection….and for those of you in the adoption world and process, his prayers were sought in the adoption of our Little Man and this last adoption of our Gabriel Tariku.

He is the patron of “lost things” yes, but also for finding and bringing home things too, so we hit him up for adoption prayers as well. Hey, it couldn’t hurt! And well, we believe he is a faithful intercessor.

So, I’m just saying….don’t fall for the trite prayer that people make fun of when they lose a coin or purse or ring. Really, think about a serious mindful prayer and even the novena.

Prayer transforms us.

And for those of you not Catholic, yes we do hit up the saints FOR PRAYERS, not to worship them…but rather like we ask each other or a dear aunt or uncle to pray for us in a rough patch. Same deal, but the saints are closer to God in that they are already in the Beatific Vision and so their prayers are more pure than ours, not murked up by all our natural human distractions and selfishness and pride.

If you’re interested in the novena go here or here. The novena starts today, ends on June 13. I’ll just leave you with two simple reasons why I love this saint: