Monday, May 7, 2007

Not quite 3 years ago...


... but 2 years and 5 months ago, we decided that our 3rd child would come to us by adoption.

In February 2005, we went on a 'wait list' for our province's mandated pre-adoption preparation course called PRIDE.

On February 8, 2006, yes- one whole year later- we started our first PRIDE class with 8 other couples.

And guess what I just realized?

On February 8, 2007- EXACTLY one year later- we saw our son's face for the first time, while sitting in our provincial adoption consultant's office, where his file was officially "proposed" to us.
And guess what else? This is cute...

February 8 is the feast of the patron saint of orphans- Gerolamo Emiliani, or St. Jermone, as he is known in the Roman Catholic tradition. I wrote a bit about St. Jermone back then, on the morning of February 8, as I was nervously waiting for our 1 pm appointment to "meet" our son.

Even though I am RC (devoutly of the Cafeteria variety), raised by nuns in a Catholic school system, I did not know about St. Jerome. I did not know about him until the week before we received Daniel's file. Desperate for whatever Divine Intervention I could invoke so that the child's file that was being sent from our agency would be OUR child's file, I googled "patron saint of orphans" (hey, there had to be one- there's one for practically everything else!), and that was when I found out about good old Gerolamo, and his feast day. Somehow, I just knew that we'd be getting THE CALL on that day, a Thursday... and we did.

Yep, I believe in saints. I believe that there are people, from all walks of life and all spiritual backgrounds, Christian and non-Christian, recognized and unknown, those that have embraced Religion and those that have shunned it, who ALL share in common the fact that they were so KIND in their lives on earth that their positive energy still resonates, even after their physical bodies are no longer.

You can think of them as saints. Or not. It's up to you.

I know a lot of us have wildly varied spiritual beliefs and practices- which I think is just fascinating and wonderful. But isn't it all about Energy- no matter what other rituals or value systems we add on to our beliefs?

I just love thinking about the possibilities. And I recommend a chat with Jerome to anyone.

6 comments:

Anne Marie said...

Energy indeed! That is exactly right!

I will be having my chat with St. Jerome tonight.

(BTW, my cracked tooth is all the way in the back, so it doesn't show when I smile. Thank god. LOL.)

4D said...

That is a great coincidence of dates!

Keep smilin!

Elizabeth said...

Wow I just love synchorincity like that. So meant to be. Awesome.

Anonymous said...

I like the saints link. I need to look up saints. .

wzgirl said...

Wow. Seriously? Wow...

redmaryjanes said...

Very interesting. My mother was catholic and my father baptist. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the saints, but I certainly don't think people shouldn't. I believe that everyone's spiritual journey is very personal to them. I love hearing others talk about how they find peace and commune with God.