Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
PATER NOSTER, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
If Our Lord were to appear at my door, and I wasn’t instantly cast into eternal hellfire, after all of the pleasantries and offering Him something to eat (have you noticed in scripture how Our Lord, especially post-resurrection, is always opening conversations with, “J’all got anthang t’eat?”
Anyway, the first thing I would ask Him wouldn’t be about the secrets of the universe or any deep theological questions of anything like that. Nope. I’d ask Him if He could PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE fix my back.
So there is a tiny but very nice (and cheap – two bucks per day!) gym here, and there are very cool and chill gentlemen that work out there who are always happy to spot a sister benching or squatting without any sleazy shenanigans, so I joined and started back up lifting. And Mister Sacrum and his friends the Lumbar Muscle Gang are NOT ON BOARD WITH THE PROJECT. Mister Pelvis is wicked torqued, and as any of you who have low back problems know, when the lumbar muscles go into spasm and Mister Pelvis is torqued, life grinds to a near halt. Standing hurts. Sitting hurts. Kneeling hurts. Lying down hurts. Curling up in the fetal position hurts. But, as I have had occasion to study lumbar-pelvic anatomy since my sacrum fused at age 17 and my low back promptly “ate its pigs” to use one of my favorite euphemisms, it truly is a full-blown miracle that we can walk at all. The musculo-skeletal complexity of the human pelvis is, I think, a stand-alone proofset of Intelligent Design.
So, as we approach Palm Sunday, if you have a spare moment and have said all of your other prayers, if you could please put in a word with The Divine Chiropractor for my poorly assembled lumbar-sacral-pelvic juncture, I would be much obliged. Also, St. Gemma Galgani is the main patron saint of back problems and headaches. She had spinal tuberculosis. St. Lawrence is also a go-to on back issues.
And remember, even though I sometimes don’t make a post on Tuesdays, the Holy and August Sacrifice of the Mass in the Venerable Gregorian Rite is offered at 0830 Eastern Time each and every Tuesday for my benefactors, past, present and future.