Sancte Joseph

Ora pro nobis!

Cultivating a deep relationship with your patron saint is always a good idea. Particularly so in my case, as my patron is also the patron of my station in life.

It always amuses me when protestants criticize Catholics for praying to the saints. Equating "asking for help" to "worshipping as a false god" is a pretty big leap. By that logic, if I ask a friend to help me move, I'm violating the first commandment and worshipping my friend as a false god. Because, really, that's what praying to the saints boils down to: asking a friend for help.

If we need some material help, such as the previous example of help moving, or volunteering of time, or help wathing the kids, we don't hesitiate to ask our friends. After all, what are friends for? But why limit our petitions for help to material goods? Why not ask our friends when we're in need of spiritual support? Even protestants will ask their friends to pray for them. But then, why limit our prayers to our friends on earth? Why not ask our friends in heaven, who are in the presence of God Himself to intercede on our behalf? If a friend would do all he could here on earth, is there any reason to think that he wouldn't do all he could to help us once he has attained unity with Christ?

And to say that Saint Joseph has helped me is an understatement of the same order of magnitude as the statement "the sun is hot" or "the universe is big" or "God is good".

Just over three years ago, in 2005, shortly before the housing market peaked, Rie and I got it in to our heads that we should buy a home. I seem to recall being vaguely aware that their was a housing bubble, and that prices were inflated, but for some reason, I didn't think it would pop quite so dramatically; I just thought it would level off, then take about twenty years for inflation to catch up. After listening to the advice of those who should have been more knowledgable than I, we (foolishly) decided that then would be a good time to buy a home.

After a couple months of discouragment (which, if you were following the blog back then, produced (the ever-controversial) this, this, and (my all time favorite) this post), we finally found a "wonderful" home: a 740 sq. ft. 1 bed, 1 bath condo for the low, low price of $265,000. Our bid was accepted and we were well on our way to becoming home owners.

And we would probably still be living there, up to our ears in debt, paying a mortgage that was easily twice as much as the condo was worth, were it not for the intercession of Saint Joseph (I think it was our novena to him that saved us).

The whole escrow process was an incredibly stressful hassle from start to finish, and included such gems as the selling agent trying to (illegaly) cancel the bid and put the house back on the market. (The details there were we had a loan contingency in our original bid, which the seller agreed to; midway through escrow, the seller sent us a form stating that the bid would be cancelled unless we removed the loan contingency, which he had no right to do.)

Well, on Friday, November 18th, the day before escrow was set to close, Rie's mom (our realtor), noted that another unit in the same complex that we had looked at earlier had come back on the market after falling out of escrow. It was the same price, but a little nicer. It was a ground floor unit and had a little backyard and new flooring. Elizabeth thought that we could use the form the seller had sent us to (legally) back out of our current bid, and put in a new bid on this other unit. She called her husband José (another Joseph!) to ask his advice, but was unable to reach him (he later said that he never would have recommended backing out last-minute). She next called me to suggent the possibility to me. I was very hesitant, but after being reassured by her that she could make it work, I (foolishly, or fortuitously, depending on how you look at it) agreed. After an afternoon of furiously faxing forms fback fand forth, we had pulled out of our bid and put in a new one.

What followed was probably the most stressful week of my entire life (yes, more stressful than the one semester in college in which I had seven finals over a span of four days). The next morning she got a call from the new seller's agent stating that they were delaying accepting our bid because the seller was experiencing some family emergency, and wasn't sure he would be able to sell. By that Saturday afternoon, we finally received word that the seller was taking the condo off the market, and our bid was rejected. We had already given the 30-day notice on our apartment, and were supposed to be out by the first week of December; utilities had already been canceled, and movers had already been scheduled. With less than two weeks in our current apartment, we had no place to go.

(Oh, I forgot to mention, on the prior Thursday, the 17th, Rie was fired from her job as executive assistant to the President of Blizzard for trivial political reasons (it was finally processed as a transfer, as the President himself made sure she got a job in customer service: he didn't want to lose her from the company just because everyone in HQ were selfish ****, but for a few weeks she was out of work); So that was additional stress on top of the stress, with an extra helping of stress-fried stress and a side of stress.)

That Saturday evening, Rie furiously searched apartment hunting websites, looking for something we could move into on short notice, while I drowned my sorrows in WoW. We were only able to find one complex where the office was open on a Sunday, so we checked it out. Providentially, they had one 1 bedroom apartment that would be becoming available early the next week, but when we related our story and need, the were able to bump up the date to so we could move in that Saturday.

That week was Thanksgiving week, so I took the entire week off work so I could pack. During the week we madly packed, rescheduled movers, arranged for utilities in the new place, etc. Saturday we moved and Sunday we rested.

Now, three years later, we have a bid in on the condo we've been renting for the last two years. For $5000 less than the 1 bedroom closet in Santa Ana, we are getting a 1200 sq. ft., 3 bed, 2 bath townhouse with attached two-car garage, in a much nicer area in Laguna Hills.

With all the foreclosures and short sales and lost money on the housing bust, all I can think is "there, but for the grace of God and the intercession of Saint Joseph, go I." It is for this very reason that I end all my prayers with one simple petition: "Saint Joseph, protector of families, pray for me!"