March 26 Margaret Clitherow d. 1555

Thommy and John

good morning
i love you

She was almost Fran Boone's patron saint/confirmation name. [i don't know how it's happened. three times i've been some part of a woman's coversion process. maybe for your mother it had nothing at all to do with me; tho she's converted after each of her weddings. she didn't convert quite right away; after john's birth, actually. .... and then there was fran. she didn't want me to tell her family that we'd met on line (making it hard to answer the normal question 'how did you meet?') and from there to our dating to our getting serious to know one another, her attracted in part to my religiousity and connecting to my daily reading of the saints, my attention to patron saints - and that's how she got introduced to margaret clitherow, business women's patroness AND a convert herself. and Fran did convert and is still engrained in catholicism. then came charlene. [three women with womanized men's names?] also an Easter confirmation and her permeating her religiousity into catholicism, even still. well, two out of three is pretty good.... ]

Margaret Clitherow. Margaret married the well to do John Clitherow, a catholic man, bore him two children and then converted... and did so in 16th c. England. faith and love entwined; living her new faith in the midst of extraodinary reasons why she coulda shoulda stayed protestent but didn't . something special about responding to the gift of faith even when loved ones, family, close friends make it so very clear that they are opposed to your catholicism. maybe you can find some connection with her yourselves.

Margaret Clitherow raised her children as devout catholics. She took over the business her husband struggled with and made it succesful. and, at risk to herself, her family, and her legacy, Margaret took in fugitive priests - to protect them and to help the catholics of the area have access to priests.

She was eventually found out. she was given a few chances to recant. you are always given a chance to turn in your faith to accommodate the people around you. you can be bribed - i'll be nicer to you if you act/belileve/practice your faith like me; you can be threatened - i'm not going to talk with you, your going to be austracized, i'm going to be broken hearted unless you give up the practice of your faith... Margaret got all that and more. the consequences were truly torture and death - because she dared to be a Catholic in a protestant community. you have been tortured for being catholic in a protestant/secular school; you have been threatened and bribed for being Catholic, for considering Catholic principles in the face of anti religion, antiCatholicism. and it is understandable why you have given in to such powerful forces. maybe it is better to surrender. i can't see why or how but maybe for the moment it seems to be. and you know in your aching heart, your depressions and futilities that it is the wrong way to go. so talk with Margaret. talk with her as if she were your mother of faith - imagine how her children talked with her when they were all under threat. find solace and strength in her.

Margaret suffered a heinous torture and death. resolved to here death to be faithful and forgiving. you can be faithful, continue to love your loved ones and friends who torture yoiu, and even forgive them... without having to reneg on your baptism/confirmation - which some of those now against your catholicism vowed to support - without giving in to temptations to make nice and go along, you can keep your faith and relilgion and be part of the family and friend community... harder maybe, but faith, love, hope, and forgiveness make it work ... talk with mother Margaret, she'll help you ....

and remember the secret of a father's, your father's, The Father's Love

i love you
dad