Prayer Intentions

Birth announcement: Pia Maris!

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I did a private consultation for Danielle and her husband last spring, and Danielle let me know that they had a beautiful baby girl and gave her the beautiful name … Pia Maris!

Danielle writes,

“While we didn’t go with a name from the consultation, the consultation helped refresh the name conversation between my husband and I, giving us a few new directions. We’ve both loved the Marian title Stella Maris for many years. Once it came up in conversation to use Maris rather than Stella, we found ourselves running into Stella Maris in our daily lives and knew it was our Pia’s middle name. Thank you for the inspiration!“

Isn’t Pia Maris an absolutely gorgeous name?! So Marian!! I love Maris for Stella Maris, and Pia is also in my book of Marian names, since Our Lady is described as pia in the Salve Regina. And I love love love that the consultation helped move the conversation between Danielle and her husband in the right direction!!

Danielle added,

“I’d also like to ask you to please pray for Pia. I had her with me at my six week postpartum appointment, during which she experienced a medical emergency that lead to cpr being done, an ambulance trip, emergency baptism,  and brief hospital stay, but no real explanation. She seems no worse for the wear, but we are all on edge as tests continue.”

In a follow-up email, Danielle said,

“We’ve not really gotten answers. She has seen several specialists, had lots of tests, but nothing really points to a reason or cause. They have found a number of things to monitor, but again, none of them would have caused her breathing or heart to stop.”

I told Danielle that you all are great prayer warriors — I know you will cover Pia and her family in prayer!

Congratulations to Danielle and her husband and big sibs Grace, Jackson, Henry, and Dolly (Dolly is for the Marian title Mater Dolorosa!), and happy birthday Baby Pia!!

Pia Maris

The five baby name consultation openings I had for January have been taken, but Theresa is available to help you out! Email her at TheresaZoeWrites@gmail.com to set up your own consultation! (Payment methods remain the same.)

For help with Marian names, my book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon (not affiliate links). It’s perfect for expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady!

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Happy Mother’s Day!

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Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers (both physical and spiritual) who read this blog, and to all the mothers in the lives of all you readers! I hope you all had a wonderful day!

As a Mother’s Day gift for you all, I’m starting a novena to St. Anne tonight for you and your intentions. It will end on May 18, which is St. John Paul II’s birthday, so I’m going to add to the novena an extra prayer that he will intercede for all of you. I hope you always know how grateful I am for all of you! ❤ ❤ ❤

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon — perfect for expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady!

Another mama needing prayers

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Our reader Grace, who gave birth to her beautiful Marigold Thérèse in November after asking for our prayers, needs prayers again. Her milk supply seems to be failing — Marigold isn’t gaining well — and while the most important thing to Grace is, of course, that Marigold grows and is healthy (and she’ll do whatever she needs to do to help make that happen), Grace really loves breastfeeding and doesn’t want anything to jeopardize it. So please pray for her and Marigold, that they both remain happy and healthy. Our Lady of La Leche and St. Anne, please pray for them!

Prayers please!

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A reader has asked for prayers — she’s newly pregnant and really needs support, encouragement, and financial stability. So many of us know what that’s like! Please keep her in your prayers, and may St. Anne and Our Lady intercede for her; may she have peace and joy and all the help she needs as she looks forward to welcoming her new baby. ❤

Special intention — please pray!

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Our very own Grace, whose consultation I posted in March of 2016 for a then-hypothetical fifth baby, is nearly due with her actual fifth baby and she needs prayers!! She’s in the final stretch, but she’s been on bed rest for weeks (including part of the time in the hospital) because of hypertension/pre-eclampsia. She desperately wants to avoid a c-section after a very difficult time she had with the c-section and recovery after her previous baby, and she’s scheduled for an induction, but the baby’s position keeps changing. Her inability to take care of her family the way she’d like to and the worry and stress of the upcoming labor and delivery and hopes to avoid another c-section are taking their toll not only on her, but on the whole family.

Please keep Grace and her baby and her whole family in your prayers!! ❤

Better than candy on Halloween …

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… is helping those in need! You guys, our dear Charlotte needs help. We’ve prayed for her before as she struggles with her health issues and the hope of preserving her ability to have children one day. She has surgery scheduled for Nov. 20, but in the meantime her chronic pain is interfering with her ability to work, and though she’s cut expenses down to the bare minimum — even moving back home — her financial situation is dire, especially in light of her medical bills. One of her friends has set up a Go Fund Me for her, and though Charlotte would never want to ask anyone for help, I thought I’d post the link in case any of you feel moved and are able to help, even a little bit. And also, as always, please keep her in your prayers. Thank you all!! ❤❤❤

Prayers for Charlotte

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Happy feast of the birthday of Our Lady!!

A longtime and devoted reader needs prayers, big time. We’ve prayed for Charlotte before through her surgery for endometriosis and she was so hopeful that not only would the surgery heal her but also that it would preserve her ability to have children one day. She’s had some major setbacks though and she’s in constant pain and she’s asking for prayers again from all of you:

“Hi Kate – random, but I was wondering if you’d mind asking your readers for some prayers again. I’m off to the doctor in about an hour to talk about what would be involved in a hysterectomy, and next week I talk to a different doc about what would be involved with long term pain management. We’ve been pumping medicine and hormones into my body for several months now (the last hormone to be added, about two months ago, has resulted in me gaining 50+ pounds, which isn’t helping my health at all), I feel awful much of the time, because of shots I get every months I get nauseous and I deal with mood swings and hot flashes (they’ve put me in a sort of temporary menopause – so fun). I don’t want to sound too complainy about all that, because I was eager to try every single option to get my adenomyosis under control after finally getting my endometriosis under control. But we’ve come to the point where those medicines and hormones aren’t fully doing the job (I still get severe pain a few times a day) and so now my choice is between the two things I was most hoping to avoid – getting a hysterectomy or getting long term pain management … So basically I’ve spent the last few days feeling pretty lousy and having absolutely no idea what I should do. I’m hoping and praying that some time soon I find some clarity or understanding – OR that my last lupron shot finally works 😀 but that’s a long shot.”

And a later update:

“Today at the doc we decided to try for another three months after this next Lupron shot. We expect it to be kind of hard for me, as we can’t do as much about the pain.”

I know how much Charlotte suffers, and I know how dearly she hopes to be able to have children one day. I know a lot of you have been through similar situations! So please keep Charlotte in your prayers, and may Mother Mary and St. Anne intercede for her and bring her comfort and peace. ❤❤❤

A reader needs help rebuilding after Harvey!

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Our regular Monday consultation will post tomorrow — thank you to that family who was happy to make room for this post today!

I haven’t known what to post about the hurricane, even though everyone who is suffering the effects of it have been on my mind and in our family prayers constantly. But this morning, one of longtime readers (one of my very first!), who is the mama of the beautifully named baby girl whose birth announcement I posted here as well as older children Jude Benedict Ambrose and Felicity Catherine Finbar (sometimes called Fin 😍) — messaged me with the following request:

“Our home flooded during Hurricane Harvey. We don’t have flood insurance and we’re staring down major, major repairs; we basically had to gut everything in our house countertop height and below. I know you’ve built such a great community at Sancta Nomina and I’ve loved being a small part of it. I wanted to see if you’d be willing to reach out to your readers and ask if they would pray for us and also consider donating. My sister set up a gofundme [here].”

I’m so glad to know of a specific family and a specific way to help! If you click on the link, you’ll see photos of their house and the damage that’s been done (as well as a photo of the family, they are so sweet).

I know that even if you can’t afford to help monetarily, you all are good pray-ers, so please keep this family in your prayers! And if you can donate, please do — every little bit helps. Thank you all!! ❤💕❤💕

Happy Mother’s Day! (I’ve got goodies for you!)

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Happy Mother’s Day!! 💐💐💐 I say this to all of you, even if you’re not moms, because everyone gets in on the celebration on Mother’s Day, don’t they?! At Mass this morning I saw so many older moms that I see every week by themselves or with their husbands, and maybe sometimes one of their children, but today it seemed like they had all their grown-up kids with them (many that I’ve seen grow up) — and I was so happy for them, what a great way to celebrate Mother’s Day. ❤

As I did last year, I really wanted to do something special for you all in honor of Our Lady during her month of May, and also in conjunction with Mother’s Day. I told you all recently about the priest who gave a mission at our church during Lent, and his story regarding the power of St. Gerard’s intercession for couples who are hoping to conceive. Then just recently, someone I know told me she’d encouraged her daughter-in-law (who’s not Catholic!) to ask St. Gerard for his intercession, and they just found out they’re having twins! So I really had it on my heart to do a novena to St. Gerard, specifically for all of you who are hoping for babies. Today was the last day of the novena, and I already said today’s prayers for it, so you’re all covered! I hope you’ll let me know when your St. Gerard babies are on the way! 😊 (I’ll also just die if any of you find out you’re having twins!👯)

Also, yesterday I attended a special celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima and the canonization of our new St. Francisco and St. Jacinta 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕 at the Auriesville Shrine (I documented it on Instagram!), and remembered all of you and your intentions during the beautiful day. I’m so grateful for you all! 🌹❤🌹❤

Finally, I wanted to give you something tangible and God provided me the perfect thing! Kortnee is a reader who has an Etsy shop called Studio Senn (she also has a non-Etsy web site here, and she’s also on Instagram, where she sometimes posts promo codes), which is “a watercolor and hand lettering small business specializing in wedding paper, watercolor maps and Catholic goods for families and children.” Regarding its origin, she told me,

“Studio Senn was born a couple years ago after working for a wedding florist/planner who asked me to do hand lettering and watercolor for some small projects she had. I started doing custom invitations and watercolor maps after that. This year I’ve decided to branch out and add more of my passions to the shop: Catholic goods for families and children, baby announcements, and hopefully soon original artwork.”

You guys! She has some ah-MAZ-ing things that I know you will all LOVE as much as I do! Like this ABC Saint Poster (she paints a little saint for each letter! So darling!):

ABC_saint_poster

She also has a boy version and a girl version. SO perfect for a nursery!

Then there’s this Narnia map (available in a bigger size too):

Narnia_map

And this St. Therese quote:

St_Therese_quote

There are so many sweet sweet things to choose from! But my very favorite is this Custom Saint, Letter, Color Square Print:

Custom_Saint_Square

Which is why I’m giving one of them away to one of you!! 🎉🎉🎉 To enter, click here to go to the Rafflecopter page for this giveaway! It starts today and ends at midnight on Wednesday, and I’ll announce the winner on Thursday — the birthday of St. John Paul the Great! 👊💕

For the rest of you, Kortnee’s offering a special discount code for Sancta Nomina readers! Use SANCTANOMINA15 until June 1 for 15% off anything in the shop! And as a special bonus — she also shared about her sons’ names! They are:

Fulton Douglas
Becket Raymond

😍😍😍

She explained,

“Our son Fulton is obviously (or at least I would guess so for your readers) named after Venerable Fulton Sheen. My husband and I have been inspired by his words for years. His middle name, Douglas, is after my father-in-law. Becket is named after Saint Thomas Becket. We thought he would be a wonderful intercessor for religious reedom in this day and age and we have always loved the work the Becket Fund does for that same cause. His middle name, Raymond, is after my dad and grandpa. It happened to be a coincidence that they are both surnames. Not necessarily a trend we plan to keep but always fun to think of what would go well with them!“

I hope you all found this post as fun to read as I had writing it!! Don’t forget to enter the raffle and check our Kortnee’s Etsy shop, web site, and Instagram, and I hope you all have a wonderful wonderful day!! 🌼🌺🌷🌸

Prayers needed please!

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The community one of our readers lives in was rocked by a horrible shooting tragedy yesterday, and she wrote to ask you all to for pray for all of them — she said, “It is a small community here and everyone has a connection to someone related to this incident or to the first responders.” She also asked for prayers for the attack in London yesterday, and I ask a special prayer for the protection of my brother and his colleagues who arrived in London yesterday and, according to my sister-in-law, had gone through the area where it happened just before the attack.

For the souls of all those who died in these incidents, and for their grieving families, and for all the injured and all those otherwise affected by these tragedies, and for safety for both communities going forward, we pray. St. Anne, pray for us!