February 16: Classic Saint Marty, Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio, New Cartoon

This is the first day of the new season of the Saint Marty channel.  Nothing's really changing today.  It's time for a Classic Saint Marty.  I've delved way back for this post, to the first year of the blog.  Actually, this post comes from the first incarnation of Saint Marty, when it was titled Feasts and Famines.  I changed the title when I realized people were visiting my blog looking for recipes.

This post has been viewed only once since it was first published.  That's like having a book on a library shelf that's only been checked out a single time in four years.  I'm hoping to rectify this situation.

Saint Marty wishes you all a restful Sabbath.  Take some time to read a good book, or at least a good blog post.

February 25, 2010:  Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio

Humility is a difficult quality to cultivate in yourself. If I claim I'm full of humility, I'm basically proving I'm full of shit. That would be like donating a kidney to a family member and then expecting that family member to thank me every time he takes a leak. Humility just doesn't work that way.

Sebastian of Aparicio had humility. A Spanish immigrant to Mexico in the 1500s, he made a ton of money building roads to facilitate trade and commerce. Even after he was richer than Thurston Howell, he still lived like a beggar, sleeping on the ground and eating "the poorest of foods," according to the book, which, in my mind, translates as sauerkraut and lutefisk. When he was 70, he joined the Franciscans, donating every last peso he had to the Poor Clares. (That would be like Bill Gates trading all of his stuff to the Salvation Army in exchange for a job as a Christmas bell ringer.) He became what is called a "begging brother" for his religious community. That basically means that, for the last quarter century of his life, he hooked his little red wagon to some oxen and traveled the countryside for hundreds of miles, begging for corn, picante sauce, salsa, whatever to feed his fellow friars. He died at the age of 98 with only a pair of fallen arches to his name, I imagine. Currently, he's one of the blesseds, a saint-in-waiting.

Now, I'm not a theologian or Doctor of the Church, but if this guy doesn't deserve a pass to the head table in the Saint Banquet Hall, I don't know who does. (He wouldn't eat much, that's for sure.) Sebastian didn't cultivate humility. He walked around and collected it in an ox cart.

God seems to be doing a number on me with humility. If you are one of my five Constant Readers, you are familiar with the earlier posting about my decision to pray during Lent for people who have injured or hurt me. While it has not been a trip to Disney World in any sense, I've been feeling pretty proud of myself. I mean, c'mon. I'm praying for people who have been assholes to me. I couldn't be doing a more Christian, forgiving, selfless act this side of rubbing my face with ashes, putting on sackcloth, and retreating to a desert cave for a dinner of locusts and honey. Then I had to go and fuck it up by erupting like Mount Vesuvius a few days ago. Now I'm the one who needs to be forgiven, and let me tell you, there's nothing more humbling in the world than having to look someone in the eye and say, "I'm sorry."

But that's what I did tonight. I apologized for my behavior to two people present at my Exorcist moment on Tuesday. It was humiliating. I could feel the blood in my face as I spoke, and my palms became sweatier than a virgin's palms at the Chicken Ranch. It was over in less than 30 seconds (apology offered, forgiveness received), but I would rather have had a colonoscopy. Afterward, however, I felt like one of the contestants on The Biggest Loser after losing 25 pounds in a week. It was a tremendous relief.

That doesn't mean I'm looking forward to the other mea culpas I will be offering this weekend. Root canal sounds more attractive right now. But, as I said earlier, God's teaching me a lesson. So, I'll hitch up my oxen and head out on the road. This is turning out to be one bitch of a Lent. My cart is loaded with corn-fed humility, and I think I'm developing a couple of humble bunions.

I just hope I don't have to eat lutefisk.

Confessions of Saint Marty

February 19: Old Straw Basket, Two Nuns, Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio

After I had my breakfast, it was only around noon, and I wasn't meeting old Sally till two o'clock, so I started taking this long walk.  I couldn't stop thinking about those two nuns.  I kept thinking about that beat-up old straw basket they went around collecting money with when they weren't teaching school.  I kept trying to picture my mother or somebody, or my aunt, or Sally Hayes's crazy mother, standing outside some department store and collecting dough for poor people in a beat-up old straw basket.  It was hard to picture...

Holden can be a pretty keen observer of people.  He recognizes genuine people and, as he fondly refers to them, phony bastards.  Most of the characters in The Catcher in the Rye don't measure up to Holden's high standards.  Holden doesn't even measure up.  However, the two nuns he meets at a diner score pretty high on his goodness meter.  They teach school (one of them is an English teacher), and they collect alms for the poor.  They're the kind of individuals that make me feel guilty about just being myself.


I have a pretty good life.  I've got a job (three or four, actually), a house, a full refrigerator, two healthy kids, and a supportive wife.  Granted, right now, money is pretty tight for us.  Actually, money has a grip on my throat that's turning my lips blue.  But it's all relative.  Compared to the two nuns that Holden meets, I live a very comfortable life.

And compared to the life of Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio, I live like the pope.  Sebastian was born in 1502 in Spain and emigrated to Mexico in 1531, where he worked hard and became a very wealthy man.  Eventually, when he was entering his seventh decade of life, he gave up all of his money and joined the Franciscans.  For the next 25 years, he was a "begging brother," using a wagon drawn by oxen to gather food for the religious of his community.  He died in 1600 when he was 98, after having spent nearly a third of his life in poverty, living on charity.

If Holden's two nuns make me feel guilty, Sebastian makes me feel like Veruca Salt.  I don't think of myself as a spoiled or greedy person.  I try to be grateful for everything I have and to keep my complaining to a minimum.  I'm not always successful.  This week, especially, I've been what my coworkers would call, um, really whiny, if not downright bitchy.

Saint Marty has to keep in mind that he's not begging on the street with a beat-up old straw basket or wandering the countryside with a team of oxen looking for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner.  Blessings really do abound.

I don't think I'm this bad

February 25: Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio

Humility is a difficult quality to cultivate in yourself. If I claim I'm full of humility, I'm basically proving I'm full of shit. That would be like donating a kidney to a family member and then expecting that family member to thank me every time he takes a leak. Humility just doesn't work that way.

Sebastian of Aparicio had humility. A Spanish immigrant to Mexico in the 1500s, he made a ton of money building roads to facilitate trade and commerce. Even after he was richer than Thurston Howell, he still lived like a beggar, sleeping on the ground and eating "the poorest of foods," according to the book, which, in my mind, translates as sauerkraut and lutefisk. When he was 70, he joined the Franciscans, donating every last peso he had to the Poor Clares. (That would be like Bill Gates trading all of his stuff to the Salvation Army in exchange for a job as a Christmas bell ringer.) He became what is called a "begging brother" for his religious community. That basically means that, for the last quarter century of his life, he hooked his little red wagon to some oxen and traveled the countryside for hundreds of miles, begging for corn, picante sauce, salsa, whatever to feed his fellow friars. He died at the age of 98 with only a pair of fallen arches to his name, I imagine. Currently, he's one of the blesseds, a saint-in-waiting.

Now, I'm not a theologian or Doctor of the Church, but if this guy doesn't deserve a pass to the head table in the Saint Banquet Hall, I don't know who does. (He wouldn't eat much, that's for sure.) Sebastian didn't cultivate humility. He walked around and collected it in an ox cart.

God seems to be doing a number on me with humility. If you are one of my five Constant Readers, you are familiar with the earlier posting about my decision to pray during Lent for people who have injured or hurt me. While it has not been a trip to Disney World in any sense, I've been feeling pretty proud of myself. I mean, c'mon. I'm praying for people who have been assholes to me. I couldn't be doing a more Christian, forgiving, selfless act this side of rubbing my face with ashes, putting on sackcloth, and retreating to a desert cave for a dinner of locusts and honey. Then I had to go and fuck it up by erupting like Mount Vesuvius a few days ago. Now I'm the one who needs to be forgiven, and let me tell you, there's nothing more humbling in the world than having to look someone in the eye and say, "I'm sorry."

But that's what I did tonight. I apologized for my behavior to two people present at my Exorcist moment on Tuesday. It was humiliating. I could feel the blood in my face as I spoke, and my palms became sweatier than a virgin's palms at the Chicken Ranch. It was over in less than 30 seconds (apology offered, forgiveness received), but I would rather have had a colonoscopy. Afterward, however, I felt like one of the contestants on The Biggest Loser after losing 25 pounds in a week. It was a tremendous relief.

That doesn't mean I'm looking forward to the other mea culpas I will be offering this weekend. Root canal sounds more attractive right now. But, as I said earlier, God's teaching me a lesson. So, I'll hitch up my oxen and head out on the road. This is turning out to be one bitch of a Lent. My cart is loaded with corn-fed humility, and I think I'm developing a couple of humble bunions.

I just hope I don't have to eat lutefisk.