December 11: Saint Lucy Again

OK, there's another part of Saint Lucy's story I forgot about.  When she was turned in for being a Christian by a jealous suitor, Lucy was alledgedly tortured in various ways.  Most good martyrs are.  One of the ways in which Lucy was tortured was having her eyes gouged out of their sockets.  It's a pretty gruesome little narrative.  However, it explains why Lucy is the patron saint of not only writers, but also the blind.

I remember seeing statues of Saint Lucy in churches when I was a kid.  Even her statues were a little frightening.  She was always standing, looking like the Virgin Mary.  I can't remember if her eyes were intact or not, but she was smiling, holding a plate in her hands.  On that plate, in all their gory glory, were two eyes, veined and round, staring out at the onlooker.  I could never bring myself to remain in front of Lucy statues for very long.  They creeped me out and fascinated me at the same time.  Sort of like pictures of native women in National Geographic with their long, pendulous breasts and rings around their necks.  I couldn't keep my eyes off Lucy when I was in her presence.

Maybe that's why Lucy is also the patron saint of writers.  She has such a great story, full of drama and violence.  She was the kind of saint I could really get into when I was a kid.  Heck, she's the kind of saint I can get into as an adult.  There's something about her pain and sacrifice that moves me.  I know, if some pagan threatened to pluck out my eyes, I'd probably renounce my Christianity, my political affiliation, and my mother.

I'm not as strong a Christian as I need to be.  Certainly, I'm not as strong as Lucy.  I can be catty.  I can be petty.  I can be fearful of things completely out of my control.

Saint Marty has a long way to go before anyone makes a statue in his honor.

She's got her eyes on us

February 27: Saint Anne Line and the Oscars

Tonight, I'm going to watch the Oscars with my family.  That might sound like an incredibly tedious evening for most people.  It's a big deal for me.  You see, since I was a teenager, I've had a competition with my family over who can guess the most Oscar winners.  It started out as just acquiring bragging rights, as in, "Hey, all you losers, you eat shit, and I'm awesome!"  Then, about ten or eleven years ago, we bought an actual statuette that has the size, shape, look, and heft of an actual Oscar.  It goes home with the winner for the year.  This innovation has turned an evening of good-natured sportsmanship into a blood sport.

My sisters spend hours on Google, doing "research."  This afternoon, they were huddled in a corner, whispering to each other.  The Oscars have caused tears and arguments.  The winner, now, can't even savor the moment of triumph.  I won two years ago, and I had to wait to do my in-your-face-sucka dance until I was at home, alone.

I realize this may sound over-the-top, maybe even a little ludicrous.  But there's nothing worse than watching the Oscar ceremony for three or four hours and walking away empty-handed.  No wonder Woody Allen never shows up.  It's even worse when you realize you don't even stand a chance half-way through the night.  At that point, I usually start hitting the Cheetos hard.

There will be nothing even remotely saintly about my behavior or feelings tonight.  I want to crush my competition.  Every year, I vow to not get caught up in the fever.  Every year, I fail.  Right now, I'm sitting here, trying to calculate my odds of bringing home that gold trophy for a year.  It ain't looking good.

Saint Anne Line's life sort of puts this whole night into perspective.  She was disowned by her parents for converting to Catholicism.  In 1585, she married a fellow convert.  Her husband, however, was sent into exile for participating in a Mass.  He died in exile in 1594.  Anne, herself, was arrested on February 2, 1601, for hosting a Mass in her home.  On February 27, she was hanged for "harboring priests."

So, compared to Anne Line's life, my little competition for a faux Oscar seems, at best, silly.  I readily admit this fact.  Anne put her life on the line for her country and her faith.  I'm watching vapid celebrities stroll down a red carpet to attend a gala event that, in the grand scheme of the universe, really means absolutely nothing.  It won't bring about world peace.  It won't topple a bloodthirsty dictator.  It won't make Sarah Palin a Rhodes Scholar.

Saint Marty is trying to keep everything in perspective.  But Saint Marty would give his left testicle to take that statue home tonight.

Wish me luck!

September 9: Saint Peter Claver

I've always found saints comforting.  Sitting in church as a child, I stared at the votives flickering before statues, licking the stone robes, hands, and faces of the saints with light.  The walls reached up and up into vaulted darkness, that high, secret place where prayers gathered and swirled with incense and candle smoke.  I pictured the Hail Marys and Our Fathers trapped like carbon monoxide in the dark beams of the ceiling, circulated by copper fans onto babushkas, through rosary beads, across holy water in fonts, until everything was permeated with grief and hope.

In the pews around me, men and women knelt and prayed, lifted their broken lives to the saints.  Cancer eating pink lung.  Wife fucking strange men.  Son shooting heroin.  Husband coughing blood.  All this pain brought in whispers and candle tongue to the saints, who took it the way children take cherry Popsicles in July, with smiles, joy even, because they know relief from summer misery is simple.  Red.  Sweet.  Saint Sebastian, riddled with arrows, stared upward, as if watching fireworks on July 4, popcorn and hot dogs in his smile.  Lucy, holding a platter on which her gouged eyes sat, glowed like Grace Kelly in Rear Window, beautiful and serene.  Francis of Assisi, stigmata hands bandaged and weeping, surrounded by Disney animals, Thumper and Flower and placid blue jays.  Peter Claver, cradling a black-skinned infant with ribs like hungry teeth, blessed the child's face, tenderly as Michael Landon on Little House.

In the presence of such need, such agonizing want, the saints always looked like they had some secret, knew something the rest of us didn't.  None of the statues or paintings looked starved, filled with desperate hunger.  They all looked as if they had just consumed Thanksgiving dinner, overdosed on some kind of tryptophan-esque satisfaction.  Regardless of which of their body parts was being lopped off, stabbed, or cooked, the saints always seemed confident.  George Clooney confident.  They knew things were always going to work out for them, and, therefore, fear and worry didn't crease their features, didn't turn them into Holocaust refugees, haunted and hollow.

Two years ago, when I first started walking with the saints, I was plagued with doubts and hurts.  My wife was a struggling sex addict.  I was at war with members of my family.  I wasn't sure if my marriage was going to hold together or fly apart like some unstable, radioactive element.  I was happy and unhappy.  Full and hungry.  I thought that, if I could somehow figure out the secret locked behind the blissful smiles and stares of the saints, I would be able to be George Clooney, facing Nazis or mobsters or Joseph McCarthy, anything that came my way, with a crooked grin and a tuxedo.

My wife is still a struggling sex addict.  I'm still at war with members of my family.  I'm still working to hold my marriage and family together.  And I'm still not George Clooney.

I'm one of those old, Italian women I used to watch in church, clutching my rosary, muttering my prayers, beating my breast, flinging my needs heavenward, hoping somebody will catch them, polish them, turn them into something precious.  Love-filled.  Holy.