In the Catholic Church we have the custom of asking other Christians to pray for us, even if those Christians have passed away and are in heaven. (It's God who has the power to answer of course.) There are special saints that we ask for prayers over certain issues: patron saints.
While there is an official patron saint of mental illness/nervous disorders, there isn't one officially for the autism spectrum. But it's been suggested by Sister Mary Martha that St. Joseph Cupertino may have had an autism spectrum disorder. She writes:
Everything about his early life was unfortunate. His family was dirt poor and there was just something...not right...about Joseph. He couldn't learn to read or write. He couldn't concentrate long enough to finish a sentence. He became a burden to the family. He was given to fits of temper. In the town of Cupertino, no one wanted to be around him. Even his mother had had enough.
He was apprenticed to a shoe maker, but he never learned to make or fix a shoe.
He was taken in at a Franciscan monastery, but they didn't know what to do with him either, because he would stop whatever he was doing and just stand in a stupor. He couldn't even pass out the bread at dinner time, because he couldn't remember the difference between white and wheat bread.
Read the rest over at Sister Mary Martha's blog. For me the most striking proof that St. Joseph Cupertino had autism is the fact he could fly. Well, levitate. Which is of course a classic symptom of autism spectrum disorders (at least in the parallel universe I'm from).
I got the cool icon of St. Joseph Cupertino from the Why Become a Catholic blog, which has more stories of St. Joseph Cupertino.
I'm very inspired by reading about this saint. If I had any artistic ability I'd love to write a children's story book for kids with Asperger's/Autism about St. Joseph of Cupertino. I could get it published through Lulu.com, I've used the form one would use for a picture book/photography book for doing a poetry book once. Maybe I could find an illustrator??? Any ideas??? (I have all these spare question marks I need to find homes for.)
3 comments:
Very way cool! Whether he had Asperger's or not, sounds like he's a good saint for that. And a good saint to go to on behalf of one of my family members who has fits of temper and can't fix shoes- metaphorically speaking. Not sure about the levetation. I'll ask her.
Write the book! I'll bet you could do the illustrations. They don't have to be super duper to appeal to kids.
I am going to write the book and I hope by the time I'm finished I will find an illustrator.
Or else that I will find public domain images that I can manipulate with my new computer artwork program (a free one.)
If all else fails I'll illustrate mostly with cat pictures. I already use cat pictures on Where the Opium Cactus Grows.
I've already checked on 4 out of my five books of saints and they leave out ALL the interesting bits. There's a book and a movie about the saint on Amazon.com, I haven't checked the price yet but since I bought 2 books already this month--- Karina Fabian's and a Catholic vampire novel I bought for Kindle by mistake while trying to add it to my wish list~~~ I'm not sure I can afford it.
So I'll have to do some internet research.
(For the illustrations I thought maybe I could get more than one person to do them in exchange for mentioning them and their art web site on the book's back cover. I thought if I could get one person to get a really nice arty version for the cover, either icon style or like a quality holy card, maybe someone who draws manga-style could do the others.)
The girl who draws the Christian Manga comes to mind. The one from Facebook. She's very good.
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