June 13. Straight up Saint Paula
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Lived 1809 - 1882
Beatified 1930 Canonized 1984 A pious child, Paula "delicately [opened] herself to divine grace which [worked] marvels in her according to God's plan." Paula was orphaned by multiple caretakers in succession, and several sources note that as a tween she called upon Our Lady to be her adoptive or substitute mother. As a young woman, Paula liked to lure impressionable girls into the woods to speak about God. These gatherings in the trees formed the basis for the sisterhood she later founded. A weird/compelling phrase I saw on repeat regarding Paula's calling: Paula was especially sensitive to disfigured children, whom she called "pictures of God without a frame." Someone's Uncle Eddy summed Paula up well in this less-than-tweet-length (126 characters!) statement: "from poor housemaid to bedridden invalid, to schoolteacher, to Foundress, to canonized saint . . . it's not a bad itinerary." EMAIL SAINT PAULA I found this bizarre little web form on which you can email a prayer to Saint Paula. The form is replete with a CAPTCHA, presumably to ensure that only real humans are attempting to commune with beatas from the beyond grave. If you fill out the form, here's what you get in return. I guess in the newfangled internet age, old-timey prayer methods might fall short. INCORRUPT-ISH (OR IS SHE?) At the behest of a nun-turned-docent, a member of The Order of the Good Death posted a "corpse-selfie"of herself alongside Paula's incorrupt-ish remains. The corpse had remained incorruptable for 24 years, and then began to deteriorate. This said, the nun-turned-docent claims that, while marred, Paula's bod retains a lifelike flexibility. Others on the internet provide a counter-narrative (with counter-corpse-selfies!) that her body is "perfectly incorrupt." |
