Vatican City: The sense from those gathered in prayer, invoking the communion of saints? Two of the communion's most invoked saints are not pleased.
In an unusual move for the communion of saints, Sts. Therese de Lisieux and Mother Cabrini have joined together to announce a plea from the beyond. Both women said they were tired of being the go-to women for securing parking spaces in urban environments.
"We love you as friends of God and want to lead you to holiness of life, not a plum parking space near Starbucks," said Mother Frances Cabrini. "Besides, that rhyme is pretty bad. Seriously: 'Mother Cabrini, Mother Cabrini, please find a space for my little machine-y?' It wasn't funny on the first utterance and hasn't worn well since. I could stand it if you were trying to find a spot in front of the ER if you thought you had a stroke. But that's rarely the issue."
Therese also was uncharacteristically sad. "Please! I said I wanted to spend my heaven doing good on earth! But I didn't mean this! Really now: someone the other day uttered this at the JFK airport--'Little Flower, in this hour, show your power'--and by sheer luck a person pulled out of a parking space near the elevators. Now he's going to expect that kind of luck again, I know it! Besides, I have no power, the power is God's alone. I have suffered the misuse of this prayer for the love of you and joining with the humility of our savior...but as your personal novice mistress, I don't want to be used for your parking woes. You should be offering it up anyway."
As the small congregation listened, slack-jawed, the two saints continued with conspiratorial smiles: "We must lay down the tough love gauntlet. The next time someone tries to use us as a parking valet service, we will indeed answer your prayer: by saying 'just turn to Jesus'. Turn...get it?" They giggled. Then they began to sing a heavenly version of Simple Gifts. As the perception of the saints faded, the congregation wailed and gnashed teeth, rushing out to the parking lot.
In an unusual move for the communion of saints, Sts. Therese de Lisieux and Mother Cabrini have joined together to announce a plea from the beyond. Both women said they were tired of being the go-to women for securing parking spaces in urban environments.
"We love you as friends of God and want to lead you to holiness of life, not a plum parking space near Starbucks," said Mother Frances Cabrini. "Besides, that rhyme is pretty bad. Seriously: 'Mother Cabrini, Mother Cabrini, please find a space for my little machine-y?' It wasn't funny on the first utterance and hasn't worn well since. I could stand it if you were trying to find a spot in front of the ER if you thought you had a stroke. But that's rarely the issue."
Therese also was uncharacteristically sad. "Please! I said I wanted to spend my heaven doing good on earth! But I didn't mean this! Really now: someone the other day uttered this at the JFK airport--'Little Flower, in this hour, show your power'--and by sheer luck a person pulled out of a parking space near the elevators. Now he's going to expect that kind of luck again, I know it! Besides, I have no power, the power is God's alone. I have suffered the misuse of this prayer for the love of you and joining with the humility of our savior...but as your personal novice mistress, I don't want to be used for your parking woes. You should be offering it up anyway."
As the small congregation listened, slack-jawed, the two saints continued with conspiratorial smiles: "We must lay down the tough love gauntlet. The next time someone tries to use us as a parking valet service, we will indeed answer your prayer: by saying 'just turn to Jesus'. Turn...get it?" They giggled. Then they began to sing a heavenly version of Simple Gifts. As the perception of the saints faded, the congregation wailed and gnashed teeth, rushing out to the parking lot.
--IC
p.s. read the comments for Sherry's message from St. Anthony of Padua!
4 the midrash:
Haha... Well, a priest friend of mine, also Spanish, came back from NY with a mostly heretical prayer on his lips
"Hail Mary, full of Grace. Finds us a parking place".
We're never sending him back to the US ;)
Very funny. I had no idea these two were being used in such a way! Now, I have heard of calling on your Guardian Angle to assist in that ultimate parking space. Just can't seem to come up with a suitable rhyme for it :)
Saint Anthony said, "You two have nothing to complain about. I've got prayers for 516 purses, 245 sets of car keys, and one thousand fourty two requests for the perfect guy from just this morning.
Then there's seventeen hundred demands for one left shoe, forty two thousand for the right. How does that even happen? Fifty seven hundred petitions for a new job, a raise or an improvement of the old one, and the parking place requests, I've been farming out to purgatory as part of their redemptive penance.
I'm not complaining really, I just wish these folks would you know, eat more fish, drink acai juice and get in some time with soduku so they could keep track of things better."
The parking Hail Mary is, unfortunately, a standard.
I thought you were only supposed to use the Little Flower prayer for road accidents and ambulances?
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