Rating: 3/5
How can we think ourselves made in the likeness of God when we act worse than beasts?
Karen Cushman’s Catherine, Called Birdy, is a well-written and funny insight into life in the thirteenth century. Set in the style of a young girl’s diary, it explores concepts such as child marriage, which was of course a common routine in the High Middle Ages. Catherine battles with unwanted suitors, religion and “lady lessons,” preferring to roam free with the goat boys and marry whom she pleases.
I have noticed lately how many male saints were bishops, popes, missionaries, great scholars, and teachers, while female saints get to be saints mostly by being someone’s mother or refusing to marry some powerful pagan. It is plain that men are in charge of making saints.
Christ has risen! I got out of bed at dawn today so I could see the sun dance for joy as it is said to do each Easter. It rained, as it does each Easter.
4th day of August, Feast of Saint Sithney. God asked him to be the patron saint of girls but Sithney said he’d rather be the patron of mad dogs, so he is. I like to think of him as my father’s special saint.