You Too Can Be A Saint!

Dear Hearts,

The joy of anxiety and OCD—and just being in general nuts...

I am having an episode now. So pardon the grammar. The Xanax is tamping down the physical shaking but not the demons in my head.

Tomorrow the Burning Bed wants me to answer just regular phone calls while there is a staff meeting. And the Janey, who is the main front desk woman, has had a cold or virus for two weeks. She is still hacking. Yes, I’ve got Lysol and wipes—but the idea of using her stuff that she has touched—the computer, phone, chair all of it—is just horrifying. It is provoking a physical crisis-flight response.

I know it doesn’t make sense. She’s probably not contagious—but I don’t want to touch anything. I can’t help this feeling—it is paralyzing. The germs…the germs…I swear there is something so broken in my brain. People who don’t have OCD don’t get it. it is a terrifying prison that shrinks your world.

Halloween. All Hallow’s Eve. The night before All Saints’ Day. 

“All Saints' Day is a solemn holy day of the Catholic Church celebrated annually on November 1. The day is dedicated to the saints of the Church, that is, all those who have attained heaven. It should not be confused with All Souls' Day, which is observed on November 2, and is dedicated to those who have died and not yet reached heaven.

Although millions, or even billions of people may already be saints, All Saints' Day observances tend to focus on known saints --that is those recognized in the canon of the saints by the Catholic Church.” Catholic Online

So apparently on All Souls Day November 2, we are supposed to pray for the souls of the dead in purgatory. Yeah, whatever. I do not buy that Gram or Pope is in purgatory being cleansed off all their sins before they can get into heaven. That’s just plain fucking stupid. The Catholic Church—to whom I am devoted—fucking make that shit up to hijack a Pagan holiday. (I am devoted to my family and my country—that doesn’t mean I always agree with them. Disagreeing and devotion are not mutually exclusive.) The Catholics were determined to convert the Pagans somehow. For Pagans Samhain or Halloween is the Pagan new year and the year that the veil between This Life and The After Life is the thinnest. 

But tomorrow is a Day of Holy Obligation. Unless it falls on a Friday or Monday and then can be celebrated with Sunday Mass. Or if the Vatican just decides to make it so. I imagine it came about as a way the heathen Pagans into Church after all their occulting.

I just learned the following. Man, I wish I’d been able to take a real RCIA class.

“First, let’s talk about All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1). Anyone in heaven is a saint. And that is the goal of our lives, for to gain heaven means allowing God to make us saints” The Faith Explained Cale Clarke.

Okay, so tomorrow I celebrate and honor all those in Heaven. That’s a helluva lot of people in my book. Gram and Pop and so many others I love and admire are in Heaven. Nancy and Ronnie aren’t dancing in Heaven? Screw that. Of course, they are

I did not know that anyone who made it to Heaven is a Saint. That explains a lot about things I’ve read and heard—that Mother Mary and Christ want us all to be Saints. Huh. Saints = Heavenly Attainment. But only the special Saints have feast days. The ones who, you know, made miracles and such happen.

Actually, that is pretty comforting. Because one can pray to the Saints for intercession—so I can pray to Gram and Pop for intercession. Huh. On the other hand, when I die I will not be a Saint. Heaven or not. No way. That’s actually a revolutionary idea. All those is Heaven are Saints—but how do we know when our dead have attained Heaven?

The Catholics have no issue with Halloween

“Of course they can! The name Halloween comes from All Hallow’s Eve, meaning the day before All Saints Day — those we call hallowed or holy as we hear in the Our Father.

However, we obviously want to steer people away from things like dabbling with the occult, or seances, or other kinds of “black magic” that would be contrary to our beliefs.

By the same token, if we are dressing up for Halloween we indeed should notice our style of dress and check to make sure that we are chaste in manner.

But dressing up children and sending them trick-or-treating is fine (and fun!) to do and is not contrary to our Catholic principles.” Busted Halo Catholic Channel.

 Seances, Ouija boards, automatic writing—you don’t fuck with that. You don’t open the door and invited someone in without running of risk of letting in unintended others.

So my tarot cards and Goddess necklace are occult. 

Did Jesus make up these rules? I am thinking…no. 

Yet, despite her flaws I love the Catholic Church. Tomorrow I will receive the Eucharist—even though I’ve been bad about attending Mass and Reconciliation (not easy to find necessarily). I will be Redeemed and Atoned by the Blood and Body of Christ until I walk back to my pew and pray on my knees. I know that I sin somewhere between the actually receiving of The Eucharist and kneeling.

So not what I intended this blog to be. But this is what it is. I love it when that happens. Creativity—my Gift from God (writing)—The Holy Spirit guides my hands.

I was gonna write about what I want. But I don’t fucking know, so this post was probably the better part of valor. 

G-Pa and I did not hand out candy tonight. I send a few kids away. I thought about giving out cigarettes instead of candy—but cigarettes are fucking expensive.

Smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em. God Bless

In the name of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Mother Mary, Saint Brigid; Saint Jude; Saint Therese Lisieux; Saint Peter; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel, Jed.