New Routines with a New Saint

It turns out that my saint for the month of January (as determined by Jen Fulwiler’s Saint Generator) is Saint Genevieve.  And, conveniently enough, her feast day is January 3rd, so I’ll make sure to attend Daily Mass this Friday in her honor.  In her life, she was perhaps best known for leading the people of Paris in sustained prayer in order to ward off an attack by the Huns.

This will be my first month back in my old city with my new job, so I’m working on resetting my habits and routines of prayers.  One problem with my job working start-up hours in California is that the every changing schedule made it hard for me to set regular times for prayer.  It makes it a lot easier for me to pray, when I’m doing it according to a set schedule, because it means I don’t need to burn any time wondering if now is a good time to pray or if I should schedule it later.

I actually end up being quite glad for a commute, since it means I can basically always do the morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours.  And my new office looks like it’s just across the street from a church, so I should be able to go to Daily Mass pretty regularly, too.  The last time I worked in DC, I found it really helpful to practice a Jesuit Examen either before or after Daily Mass (this book on the practice recommended).  So I think that as I go about my new, planned routine, I’ll add in a brief remark to St. Genevieve to help me cleave to it, and refine it if necessary.

So, St. Genevieve could be a helpful patron as I try to reestablish a practice of prayer, and make sure I’m making space for contemplation in my rejiggered routine.  Plus, I feel a little more immediate affinity for her than for St. Isidore last month.  I may not know much about farming (his domain), but St. Genevieve is one of the patron saints of feverish diseases, and I can talk epidemiology (and yellow fever and malaria particularly) until long after St. Isidore’s cows have come home.