A Shaggy Saint Story

This being Christmas, I decided to read a long article in today's New York Times Magazine about a 12-year-old girl who died in 1959 that people are trying to have named a saint. Growing up in a Jewish household, I never heard much about any saints, except when people would say my grandfather was a saint for staying married to my grandmother. I think Mother Teresa may be a saint.

I am not embarrassed to admit my ignorance in this area because of two things. First, I have confidence in my intelligence and second, sainthood belongs to a sect of a religion I do not follow. Much of what I know about Catholics I learned from seeing the movie Spotlight, and none of it was good. Anyway, what I think, in my ignorance, is that a saint does God's work on earth and helps people in need, putting themselves last in all situations.

Okay, so back to the girl that died in paragraph one that they are trying to make a saint. Apparently she decided at age seven that she wanted to be a saint someday. Then she had a vision in her backyard of a woman dressed all in black. She saw this same woman in a vision again soon after, and told her mother. Then she got leukemia and started having a lot of nosebleeds and pain.

The doctors told her family it was terminal, in fact that she had two weeks to live, and one day the hospital priest went to the girl and said, "A beautiful woman is coming to get you soon," to which she replied, "I'll tell the Heavenly Father you said hello," or words to that effect. Then she died.

Since her death 60 years ago many people in her town in Louisiana (big surprise) have visited her grave and claim she has cured their cancers and other diseases, and are trying to have the Vatican name her a saint. This is the reason I rarely do anything but the crossword in the The New York Times Magazine.