Toad in the Hole

So in the middle of a post over at Pharyngula, it occurred to me that I might profitably propose teaching a new class at one of the Peralta colleges, or Berkeley Adult Ed, or the Y, or somesuch. Something like ESL for non-Catholics—specifically, never-been-Catholics. I’ve spent 36 years (as of July 5) explaining it on the fly to Joe, who now gets pretty much all the Catholic jokes right away. (I don’t think he quite believes some of the factual stuff I’ve told him, though.)

I find myself doing a lot of that for free at places like flea markets anyway. This month I had to tell a seller that what he thought was a statue of an anonymous nun was in fact (or what passes for fact) a statue of Saint Rita, as she had the fieldmark of the smelly suppurating sore on her forehead. This was as usual represented by a decorous red spot, which he’d been calling “her bindi.”

I’ve had a Saint Rita holycard/medal combo (in a neat compartmented plastic cover) in the car for years, figuring she must be the patron saint of parking meters and the avatar of the Goddess Asphalta and I could implore her help in finding parking spaces. I bought this wonder at the Tohono O’odham mission church about an hour south of Tucson, where we went for the excellent Indian tacos on the far side of the commodious parking lot/plaza. Worth the drive, too, including the accidentally-going-to-Mexico part.

Since then I’ve learned more about Saint Rita. This is one scary bitch.

OK, she converted her abusive husband (to whom she was married against her will; she’d wanted to be a nun) to kindly kindness by virtue of her years of uncomplaining piety. See, if you never mention that you don’t like getting beaten up, someday they’ll take notice and stop doing it, or something. Or maybe they’ll think you enjoy it and stop out of spite. Human psychology is so confusing. Then he got killed (See what virtue gets you?) and Rita was worried that their two sons would engage in the fine old Sicilian practice of vendetta against the killer or killers. Have I mentioned she was Sicilian? You’d think she’d do something actually good, like Sicilian cooking or at least making wine, but no. What she did was pray to God that her sons would drop dead instead and, sure enough, they did. Slowly enough to get right with the Lord on the way, but dead. This is supposed to be a good thing, see, if you’re Catholic.

Why the hell didn’t she just pray to God that her sons would swear off vendettafication???

You might well ask. Come to think of it, I’ve been asking that myself. The answer, of course, is that this is a Catholic story and apparently that wouldn’t be ghastly enough.

But wait; there’s more. With her family out of the way, Rita again wanted to enter the convent, but the local holy authorities wouldn’t let her. But she was miraculously put inside the convent walls so they let her stay. At some point here she acquired that stinky sore, which never went away; this is taken as a sign of God’s favor. Remember, this is a Catholic story. Something to do with the Crown of Thorns. Then she died, miracles etc. etc., and now that she was dead her body “was preserved perfectly incorrupt for centuries and at times gave off a sweet fragrance.” Supposedly sat up and opened its eyes at her beatification ceremony, which a/ wouldn’t that give you pause about giving someone what’s pretty much a post-mortem degree? and b/ What the merry hell was the body doing there anyway?

OK, well, that’s Saint Rita. I’d have to bone up on my iconography, I guess; there are some saints whose fieldmarks I’ve forgotten. I know St. Joseph’s lilies, St. Anthony (the hermit)‘s pig, St. Jerome’s lion, yadda yadda, and I recognized Mother Cabrini in that flea market right off the bat. I think it was her hat. But you know, there are so many minutiae that folks might find useful, and so many things that are too outlandish to make sense, that I just might have found an educational niche.

And ask me about chapel veils sometime. Remember I grew up pre-Vatican 2. Field ID of Plaster Saints is just a small part of the vast (or half-vast) store of knowledge sloshing about in my midbrain.