Happy um, Saint's Day, Elizabeth!

It was brought to my attention this morning (I've been super-busy all day and haven't had time to blog) that today is the Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary.  As with Jerome, I really wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with that.  But I found out about it via a friend who mentioned on Facebook that it was Elizabeth's Memorial (not sure on the capitalization there, anyone know?) and also the world awareness day for the genetic abnormality that her (my friend) little daughter has.  It's interesting for the little girl because Elizabeth of Hungary was (is?) her "baptismal saint", and she was just diagnosed last year with the disease.  Cool (coincidence??) that it all came together on that day.

So I messaged my friend and she shared about some other friends (including a mutual friend of ours from high school) who claim her as their patron saint, and then closed with

That is awesome that St. Elizabeth of Hungary is part of your life too.

It struck me, because even though I claim to "blog under" this woman's name, and I drew St. Jerome for 2010, and I'm really trying to figure out this whole "saints" thing, in a lot of ways I clearly still just don't get it.  I had to stop for a minute and remember: Elizabeth of Hungary is a real person, and the fact that she is "part of my life" totally blows me away. 

Anyway...I'm still waiting for this:

The marriage was in every regard a happy and exemplary one, and the couple were devotedly attached to each other. Ludwig proved himself worthy of his wife. He gave his protection to her acts of charity, penance, and her vigils, and often held Elizabeth's hands as she knelt praying at night beside his bed.

Now, who's the right saint for that request??

St. Jerome

So, as a part of my aforementioned efforts to "get along" with the saints, I've taken to having these fabulous women pick out for me a yearly "patron saint".  It's really a matter of stepping out in faith for me, and trying to find out if I feel like I'm worshipping mortals, or just more fully engaging in the commuion of the saints in which I profess to believe.  I'm not sure how they do it, whether it's out of a hat, or some random number generator, or some sort of prayer scenario, or what.  But hey, even casting lots is Biblical, so method doesn't really matter to me. 

What matters is the two that they've picked. 

Why Elizabeth of Hungary?

Confession time: My name is not Elizabeth, and I'm not from Hungary. 

So, why am I blogging under this name?  Well, in recent years I've been learning more and more to "get along with" the saints, so to speak.  When I started looking for a name to blog with, it seemed natural to turn toward the saints.  I probably went about this sort of the wrong way, but basically I googled a whole ridiculously long list of saints, and scrolled through the list, picking out names I like the way you pick them out of a baby name book.