This synchronicity was sent by Margarita Goodhart, who lives in Ecuador. We met her and her husband Frank some years ago when we stayed at their hotel in Otavalo, one of the highlights of that trip.
++
As a kid, Margarita was brought up by the Catholic church until she was 18. When she was 10 or 11, she was instructed to pick a saint.The idea here is that the saint intercedes for you with God. So she did her homework, reading up the lives of saints, and finally chose San Martin de Porresm, a black man who wasn’t allowed to become a priest.
According to Wikipedia, he was a Peruvian lay brother of the Dominican Order who was beatified in 1837 by Pope Gregor XVI and canonized in 1962 by Pope John XXIII. He’s the patron saint of mixed race people, barbers, innkeepers, public health workers, all those seeking racial harmony, and of animals. Among the many miracles attributed to him were bilocation, levitation, and an ability to communicate with animals.
So years ago, Margarita was in Lima, Peru, staying in an old section of the city where the church of Santo Domingo was. “I decided one day to go over there to the church, sit in the back for the rest of a Mass, and then got to speak with the Sacristan, one of the caretakers. He mentioned that the remains of San Martin de Porres were in the back chapel and would I like to see it?
Well, my heart stopped for a moment. This was a ‘connection, ‘ something meaningful. So yes, his remains were back there, ‘buried’ somewhere, not sure what they were, maybe a bone? Anyway, it was set up in the little ornate chapel like a ‘casket’ in a way with glass on the top. I was able to be there and spend all the time that I wanted! I knew that I was ‘home’ whatever that was, as I lived in 5 different ‘homes’ (not) growing up! So I thought you would be interested in that! I’m now 72 so you can imagine how long ago that was!
Well, I went full circle on that one.
Just look at the odds.A saint Margarita had picked when she was 10 or 11, an orphan of the Catholic church, just happened to be buried in a church in a neighborhood in Lima where she was staying as an adult many years later. She felt as if she’d “come home.”
