2010 March 26

One of the definite marks of a true statesman, is the ability to understand where someone else is coming from. This is generally accomplished because one has studied other faiths and can “see things from the other person’s viewpoint.”

This can be tough, because we become comfortable in our own faith and the practices thereof.

It is the job privilege of TommyMom to ask the “tough questions,” thus boldly going where no one very few have gone before!

After St. Patrick’s Day, I realized that I wasn’t familiar with sainthood…

how it is achieved within the Catholic faith…

and what more they’re waiting for Mother Teresa to do to prove herself worthy!

I got my answer by going to a reliable source, my dear friend, Christy Gandara.

In the process, I also took the liberty of deciding that you are all on the edge of your seats about these issues as well.

You can show your appreciation by continuing to pledge your undying support…

which, you will soon see, is undoubtedly a lot easier than achieving sainthood!

Christy also shares with us a darling St. Patrick’s Day tradition…

that will be a boatload of fun to do next year with those CORE and Love of Learners.

Also, Congratulations are in order for Stephanie Scoville, the winner of the Headband Giveaway from last week!

Have a great weekend…

and thank Christy by leaving her a comment, will you please?

My journey with Leadership Education is much like everyone else’s (at least that’s what I tell myself)…

a balancing act.

I have 3 children, affectionately called ‘bugs’, a husband, (I call him Hunny) and 3 cats.

For the year 2010 our school antics are inspired by holidays – both well known and obscure.

Some holidays call for more of a celebration than others – take last week’s St. Patrick’s Day for example.

Not only is there Irish blood running through my veins, and the veins of the bugs…

but also, we are Catholic, one of the religions that recognizes “saints”.

Saints can often be misunderstood, but they are tied to two nationally celebrated holidays: St. Patrick’s Day and St. Valentine’s Day (often the saint part is left off of Valentine’s Day).

Among those of the Catholic faith, saints are celebrated year round, often with each day having a ‘patron’ saint. But that’s a whole new topic, for another day.

For St. Patrick’s Day this year, we continued with our tradition of creating a leprechaun trap.

Over the years, leprechauns, the little people of Ireland, have dominated the holiday in place of its true honoree, St. Patrick.

Besides, everyone knows if you catch a leprechaun you get his pot of gold – and who can’t use some extra cash???

Here at the Gandara Bug Academy we’re just trying to get those Disney passes…

Before I share with you the Gandara Bug Academy’s St. Patrick’s Day, I want to take a quick moment and explain the process of becoming a Catholic saint…

it is a long tedious process that begins after death, (well there needs to be some ‘good stuff’ going on in life), but there are no official living saints.

If you aspire to be a saint in the Catholic Church (other Christian churches also recognize saints) here is what you need to do:

You need to be Catholic, live a wonderful life, perform a miracle or die a martyr…

easy as pie right???

The process officially begins after death, with an investigation into your life by your local bishop. (Just as in many other faiths – the Catholic Church has a hierarchy.)

A postulator, or advocate is assigned the case. The advocate is going to dig deep into the life of the candidate, look at any readings or writings of said candidate, research teachings of the candidate, look for acts of holiness, heroism or other virtuous deeds.

The postulator is looking to see if the proposal for sainthood is truly worthy.

When sufficient evidence has been found, the information is sent to the Vatican for further examination.

Here, the postulator presents the evidence to a panel of theologians and cardinals (not the birds, priests higher in the hierarchy) called the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

The panel examines the evidence and if the case is deemed to have merit, the candidate will be elevated, by the Pope, to “Venerable” – which means a role model of the Catholic virtue.

The next step on the road to sainthood is beatification. In order to be beatified the Congregation for Causes of Saints must verify a miracle.

According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, a miracle is “above the course of nature and beyond its productive powers” – an extraordinary event that is produced by God, acting through others, and verified by witnesses.

The trick to Catholic saint-hood is this miracle must be posthumous (after your death).

Once a candidate has been beatified, they are now referred to as “Blessed”.

Mother Teresa was beatified in 2003 and now is called: Blessed Mother Teresa.
If you want to bypass the first posthumous miracle route, then you can simply die for your Catholic beliefs and become a “martyr”.

A martyr can be beatified without evidence of a miracle.
Those that make it this far, to “Blessed” can now be honored within his or her local diocese, region, or religious order.

However, the road to full church-wide sainthood has more hurdles to jump over.

The final step is Canonization. Before someone can be canonized a saint the Congregation for the Causes of Saints must be presented with evidence of a SECOND posthumous (after death) miracle. Not only does this miracle have to occur after your death, it must occur after the candidates Beatification.

Talk about hard to do!

This final step is not taken lightly, and is the reason many favorites, such as Blessed Mother Theresa, have yet to be granted the title “Saint”. There are no ‘former’ saints, once a saint, always a saint – no room for error.

Posthumous miracles are often the result of praying to the “Blessed” for intervention, being placed near an image or medal of the person, when a loved one is faced with grave illness.

So there you have it – the road to Catholic Sainthood…

The number of actual Catholic Saints is debatable to many. It depends on if you want to count ancient and medieval saints given the honor of sainthood without the formal canonization process…

So back to our gold digging, leprechaun catching, St. Patrick’s Day…

Leprechauns, as you know, are extremely clever, so they need to be tricked in order to successfully trap them.

We have been trying for 3 years, and we were CERTAIN this was our year…

… we bring out the big ideas… we started with a DEEP box…

the bugs painted it to look like a flowerpot (you can’t exactly leave it looking like a trap can you??)

Daddy built a ramp going up the side so the leprechaun would naturally explore…

We covered the open top with tissue paper (easy for a leprechaun to fall through) and silk flowers so it would look like a garden…

Lauren added this cupcake and note to the path… see the gold flakes (just dried paint peeled from a plastic lid) – those were to lure the leprechaun up to the top.

The Trap… grass painted along the bottom…

Now the real trick was getting the leprechaun to walk over the tissue paper ‘garden’ so we needed more bait…

each bug placed a rock, painted like a gold nugget at the far end of the ‘garden’.

The leprechaun would need to walk across one thin sheet of tissue paper to get these ‘gold’ nuggets – instead he would drop through the tissue paper and be TRAPPED!

Here each bug carefully places their ‘gold’ nugget.