I am a practicing christian myself BUT.....

[SalBySea]

a friend sent me a prayer card for a safe delivery of my baby and its really wound me up because the patron saint of pregnant women is a man

it gets worse, the REASON he is patron saint of pregnant woman is because he was accused of fathering a child which he denied and he later convinced the woman to retract her claim sounds like a nice guy eh!

If (in an alternate universe) there were no female candidates for the role, surely someone like Joseph would have been much nicer and more appropriate as patron saint for protection of pregnant woman (since he actually protected a pregnant woman rather than call her a liar and get embroiled in a bitter paternity arguement!)

Its really p:ssed me off!

Hmm we used to say that Margaret Clitheroe was the patron saint of pregnant women

Particularly nice because she was pregnant while she died - a wooden door was put on top of her and increasingly heavy boulders put on top

Particularly nice to name the local primary school after her

Morningpaper - EWWW now THAT is morbid!!!!

she also sent me a family prayer card which is to Jesus and Mary - I take no offence to that one whatsoever

My husband has taken the Gerard one outta my sight - prob for the best!

I'm sure the prayer card was sent with the best of intentions. I don't know what the choice of cards was and many people find it difficult to know what to say in a card.
Best wishes

eeeooooow! That is so morbid it's funny.

I watched The Magdalen sisters the other night. I had always known that those poor girls were trapped their while pregnant becuase their families turned their backs on them, but I didn't realise that they were forbidden to leave afterwards. That really broke my heart. I felt traumatised after watching it. Those nuns counting their money their slaves had earned doing the town's laundary made me so sad for them.

of course you're quite right FragileMum.

In my case my overall feeling was gratitude for their taking the time to send a card at all. It really was just a v small bad thought, honest.

justaboutback isnt that a MASS card not a prayer card (which would mean that the bishop would mention the intention during the service)

yeah at least it wasnt a prayer by the Magdalen sisters!

Morningpaper's saint reminded me of another TOTALLY inappropriate saint story:
In the work book they gave us pre-confirmation, there was a story of a saint (a young girl) who was raped and beaten by her neighbour, and as she lay bleeding to death on her kitchen floor as he stood over her she said "I forgive you". What kinda lessons are 12 year olds supposed to learn from that

I love prayer cards btw

Unless they say things like "CELEBRATING OUR 350th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!" or "MY 103rd ANNIVERSARY OF MY ORDINATION!" which I feel is showing off