{"id":142899,"date":"2026-07-20T05:00:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T09:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/?p=142899"},"modified":"2026-07-02T14:18:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T18:18:35","slug":"st-wilgefortis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/st-wilgefortis\/","title":{"rendered":"St Wilgefortis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dear Willy,<\/span> \u00a0 <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your recent note was most disappointing. \u00a0It reminded me how little I have done to extend our Lord\u2019s Kingdom in the hearts of my nephews and nieces. \u00a0Ah me! May the Lord have mercy on my soul! I refer to your positively juvenile complaint about not getting your prayers answered. \u00a0The most basic fact about petitioning prayer is that God ALWAYS answers it, but not always as we want him to. If you didn\u2019t win the NEH Younger Scholarship even though you worked super hard for it and prayed like you never prayed before, that doesn\u2019t mean that God has abandoned you! \u00a0My dear nephew, he knows what\u2019s best, not you, not even your incredibly well-informed uncle, Eddy. Whenever we ask God for anything in prayer, we must always have in our hearts the simple trust of a child, confident that our heavenly Father hears us and will respond with the full force of his wisdom and love.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just to drive the point home, I will remind you of the rather apocryphal story of today\u2019s saint, which nonetheless illustrates that God answers our prayers, but sometimes in unpredictable ways. \u00a0Wilgefortis, so they say, was one of septuplets born to the pagan king of Portugal. (All seven, according to the legend, became Christians and died martyrs.) Her father was bent on marrying her off to the king of Sicily for diplomatic purposes, despite her private vow to remain a virgin out of love for Christ. \u00a0So she prayed for help. It came \u2013 boy did it come. Almost overnight she miraculously grew a beard and mustache, which successfully repulsed the Sicilian suitor. Her father was so enraged that he had her crucified.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She has never been officially canonized, but through the ages, Christians have held the story dear \u2013 most likely (in my opinion) because it so eloquently presents the mystery of petitioning prayer (asking favors from God). \u00a0So don\u2019t be discouraged, my downcast nephew, just keep forging ahead, spurred on by your hope and trust in the God who created you, redeemed you, and has gone ahead of you to prepare your mansion in heaven.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sincerely, your clean-shaven uncle, Eddy<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Willy, \u00a0 Your recent note was most disappointing. \u00a0It reminded me how little I have done to extend our Lord\u2019s Kingdom in the hearts of my nephews and nieces. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.8 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>St Wilgefortis - Regnum Christi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/st-wilgefortis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"St Wilgefortis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear Willy, \u00a0 Your recent note was most disappointing. \u00a0It reminded me how little I have done to extend our Lord\u2019s Kingdom in the hearts of my nephews and nieces. 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