St. Gerard’s intercession

Another St. Gerard story!

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I had a little mix-up with the Monday consultation post schedule, so I’m posting this wonderful story instead, which I’d originally planned to post tomorrow.

Alissa shared this awesome story with me:

“Hi Kate! I am a longtime reader and wanted to send you my St. Gerard story after seeing your call for St. Gerard stories a few days ago!

After trying to conceive our second for about 8 months including a miscarriage, I had a friend at Church recommend praying a Novena to St. Gerard. I honestly felt silly I had never thought of doing this since I’ve had a devotion to him since my first pregnancy, 3 years earlier. So, my husband and I along with my friend who recommended the Novena started the novena that same day. On the day after the Novena ended, I found out I was pregnant! Fast forward 9 months at the end of my pregnancy, I left my 39 week appointment with orders to head to the hospital for delivery that afternoon due to raising blood pressure. Since I was c-section, I was unable to eat from that point through my surgery, so my husband and I decided to go hang out at our local Church and pray a while. While we were sitting there, discussing possible names for the baby, I realized I hadn’t checked to see whose feast day it was. I was utterly speechless when I saw … October 16 … St. Gerard! WOW! God is so good!! Our sweet Gianna Malin (4th generation with Malin as a middle name!) was born that evening and is now a feisty 4 year old.

Thanks for letting me share that story. What sweet memories it brings! St. Gerard, pray for us!“

How cool is that?? I love hearing these St. Gerard stories! Thanks to Alissa for sharing this, and please feel free to send me any of your St. Gerard stories!

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Gianna Malin, thanks to St. Gerard’s intercession and born on his feast day ❤

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Birth announcement: Wendy Emilia! (And a St. Gerard story!)

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Do you all remember last year when I posted about the priest who’d done a mission at our parish and told us about his great regard for St. Gerard’s intercession in helping couples conceive? And how he would encourage couples to pray to St. Gerard and then let him know when they were expecting a baby, because he was so confident that St. Gerard would come through? I just got the most amazing email the other day!

Evva (who I follow on Twitter) writes,

“Hi!
I found your blog about a year ago and started following you on twitter. At that time my husband and I had been trying to get pregnant for a little while and reading about and talking baby names was so fun and loved all the name information you had! After some more time passed I was started to get discouraged we still weren’t getting pregnant and around that time you posted something about St Gerard and his intercession for anyone who wanted a baby. After that I decided my husband and I would pray a saint Gerard novena. My husband is not catholic so it was his first time praying one. Anyway that very next month I found out we were pregnant!! I couldn’t believe it. I just wanted to reach out to you and say thank you and share our story, My baby girl was born on the feast of the immaculate conception!“

OHMYGOODNESS!! What an awesome story!!

So of course I had to ask all about this baby girl! Evva explained,

“Like I said before my husband isn’t catholic so the real catholicky names he wasn’t going for haha. We had a real tough time picking a girl name for some reason we just couldn’t agree on anything so settling on one was a lot of back forth but we finally decided on the first name Wendy for no reason aside that it was one we could both agree on. And for her middle name we went with Emilia. I read on your blog that it was Saint Pope John Paul II’s mom name and I loved it plus I thought it flowed nicely with the first name. 

Here’s a few pictures of her with a St Gerard medal I bought soon after we completed our Novena.”

Wendy Emilia

Isn’t this all so wonderful?! Congratulations to Evva and her husband, and happy birthday Baby Wendy!! (And if any of you have St. Gerard stories, I’d love to hear them!)

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!! 🌼🌺🌷🌸

Stories of St. Gerard, Sr. Anselm, Sr. Theotokos

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I don’t usually post on Sundays, but I was so moved by Mass today, and I wanted to share with you something Father said. Our parish is a Redemptorist parish, and one of their priests has come to do a mission at our church this week; this morning he said Mass and introduced himself and told us about his work and his experiences. What I particularly wanted to post is that he has a great amount of confidence in St. Gerard’s intercession for anyone hoping to have a baby. He mentioned how there were several times recently at other missions he’d done where he prayed with a couple who had been struggling to have a baby for St. Gerard’s intercession, and then asked them to email him when they’d conceived — and of course he received the emails not long after!

He also told the story of his own mother, who really wanted a son after having had two girls (and he’s Lebanese, so he said that played a role too — both his parents really wanted a boy!). So he said his mom did a 9 month novena to St. Gerard while she was pregnant and was blessed with not one boy, but two — he’s a twin — he and his brother are Thomas Gerard and Charles Gerard! I loved that story so much!

Unrelatedly, but still something I think you’ll all appreciate, he said he was stationed in Lebanon for a while, and knew Sr. Anselm while there — she’s one of the Missionaries of Charity sisters who were shot by ISIS last year this month. Funny enough, I’d looked up that very story yesterday, as I’d had the great privilege of attending the celebration of the 33rd anniversary of the foundation of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) and the opening of the IVE monastery in Auriesville, NY (location of the Shrine of the North American Martyrs and Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs, martyrdom of St. Isaac Jogues, and birth of St. Kateri), and a whole bunch of the Order’s sisters were there (Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara [SSVM]; we met one who introduced herself as Sr. Theotokos, which I love so much; I googled her, and her full name is Sr. Maria Theotokos, love love!), and I was thinking that they reminded me of the sisters who had been killed last year, so I’d looked them up to see if they were the same Order (I hadn’t remembered that they were Mother Teresa’s Order). Such a weird coincidence that I’d just looked them up yesterday and they were mentioned today!

My husband and I are going to attend as much of the mission as we can, and I’ll keep all of you and your intentions in my prayers during this week. St. Gerard and the martyred sisters, pray for us!