Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

On an unseasonably warm March day this year, I attended the 5:00 Vigil Mass at my parish, which was also Confirmation with Bishop Evelio Menjivar of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. The large church was packed, with folding chairs lining the entire interior perimeter of the church and chairs outside the doors of the church as well. In fact, it was so crowded I sat at the back of the children’s choir of the parish school just to get a seat. It is the most crowded I’ve ever seen my church, including Christmas, Easter, and a special Mass when we hosted a visit of a relic of our patron saint, St. Jude Thaddeus. 

Why the crowd? Well, there were 150 young people being confirmed! This included the day school class as well as the students in the faith formation program at our church, formerly known as CCD or catechism classes. That has to be some kind of record, at least for our parish, and I’ve attended Confirmation Masses for the last 8-10 years. The Holy Spirit was definitely present!

As I sat on the top level of the choir risers during the Mass, quietly fanning myself with the Order of the Mass and dabbing away at the beads of sweat on my forehead, I thought back to my own Confirmation. I was confirmed into the Catholic faith on April 23, 1966. I was young, not even 10 yet, and my recall is that my young age was a result of Confirmations only being held every few years due to the size of our parish and the distance of our town from New Orleans. 

I was confirmed by Archbishop Philip Hannan of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, who was a confidant of President John F. Kennedy. Archbishop Hannan gave the eulogy at the funeral Mass of Kennedy in 1963, as well as the graveside eulogy of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and delivered the graveside blessing for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1994.

I have a beautiful gold medal from my parents of the Holy Spirit to commemorate my Confirmation. In the year of faith formation preceding the receiving of this Sacrament, I had to choose a saint to study and emulate. I presented my choice to my mother one afternoon after CCD class: St. Veronica. She took one look at me, handed me the Lives of the Saints book, and sent me to my room to “try again.” In feigned shock, I asked why. The answer was swift, and accurate. “It’s because of those Archie comic books. You chose St. Veronica because of Betty and Veronica. Absolutely not!”

So I returned to my room with my tail between my legs. She was right. I had scoured the index of the saints book looking for a tie to my favorite comic book characters, with nary a concern for what that saint represented to our Catholic faith. Throwing myself on my bed, I went back to work, once again, going through the index, looking at the names of female saints and waiting for one to “speak” to me. And, then, there she was, St. Monica. In my adolescent mind, the leap between Veronica and Monica was not that far, I mean, they even rhymed! So, I turned to St. Monica’s page and skimmed her short bio so I could try to answer any questions from my mom that may come with regards to my second choice. 

My mom didn’t bat an eye when I presented her with my new choice. No questions, no drama, just “that’s fine,” and instructions to fill out the form for the CCD teacher. Years and years later, I stumbled upon my little Lives of the Saints book and I immediately turned to St. Monica’s bio, and this time, I read it very carefully. 

Wow. What a woman. The fact that through sacrifice and prayer she was able to bring her son, Augustine, back to the Church, and in turn, he would become St. Augustine, a Doctor of the Church, was staggering. Because of her love for her son and being left a widow at the age of 39, she is the patroness of mothers and widows. Because of the physical effects of her mother-in-law’s and her husband’s ill temper that she experienced, she is the patron saint of domestic abuse victims. Once she had seen the conversion of her son Augustine, after praying and weeping for him for 17 years, St. Monica died at the young age of 57.

The stiflingly hot and crowded Confirmation Mass I attended a few weeks ago was beautiful. A student whom I have been tutoring was being confirmed and was chosen to be a gift bearer. She had asked if I was going to Confirmation and I told her yes, I had already planned to be there. Earlier in the school year I had asked her about Confirmation and whether she had chosen her Confirmation saint. She told me, “Yes, St. Margaret of Scotland.” I nearly fell off my chair. My mother was named Margaret, another Margaret in the long chain of Margarets in her family in Scotland, and she was born on the feast day of St. Margaret of Scotland, November 16th. My maternal grandparents immigrated to the US from Glasgow, Scotland. 

When I told my student this, she sat wide-eyed staring at me. What a coincidence that she would choose St. Margaret of Scotland as her patron saint. That afternoon as we worked on her saint report for religion class, we looked at pictures online of the Chapel of St. Margaret at Edinburgh Castle, which I visited with my parents in 2000, and again in 2002 with my own family, including my older daughter, Margaret. The legacy continues. 

St. Margaret of Scotland was an English princess born in Hungary as her father was Edward in Exile, of the Wessex bloodline. They returned to England but eventually fled an uprising to return to the continent, but they were shipwrecked off the coast of Scotland, and because of their royal status were taken in by the then King of Scotland, Malcolm III. Young Margaret and Malcolm were married, and they were uncharacteristically — for the time period and for royalty in general — were happily married. She brought to him and his people her strong Catholic faith, her works of service to the poor and to orphans, and her devotion to family. Her son, King David I, built a chapel next to Edinburgh Castle to commemorate the life and works of his mother. One final coincidence: St. Margaret of Scotland’s original feast day was June 10th, which just happens to be the day my husband and I were married! 

St. Margaret of Scotland, pray for us. St. Monica, pray for us.