Holy Pagerank! From My Lips to God’s Ear…

I signed up for Google AdSense over the weekend, not because I expect to get rich from it, but more because I was curious to see how the all-powerful algorithm that determines so much of what we see on the Net would categorize my humble site and its motley collection of content. Well now I know. Amid a number of ads for pest control (ahem…) today they served up an ad on my site for a [Polish convent] devoted to the life work of a nun named Saint Faustina (pictured here in a rare moment of hilarity). The good sisters’ wimples would likely fall off if they saw some of the things I write about and, at first, I saw this as a random hiccup on the part of the Googlebot — equivalent to Hal singing “Daisy, Daisy” in the movie 2001 once his wits start to go. But, upon further investigation, it may show even more profound and scary Intelligence. From a site describing Faustina’s life:

Convinced of her own unworthiness, and terrified at the thought of trying to write anything, she nonetheless began keeping a diary in 1934 in obedience to the express wishes of her spiritual director, and then of Our Lord Himself. For four years she recorded divine revelations and mystical experiences, together with her own inmost thoughts, insights, and prayers. The result is a book of some 600 printed pages that, in simple language, repeats and clarifies the gospel story of God’s love for His people, emphasizing, above all, the need to trust in His loving action in all the aspects of our lives. It also reveals an extraordinary example of how to respond to God’s mercy and manifest it to others.

So you see, Faustina is the patron saint of blogging. And the coincidences don’t stop there. She was called to blogging by Divine mandate — just like me! She felt she had nothing to say but wrote anyway — just like me! She manifested extraordinary mercy to others — just like me! Well, kinda’. For her dedication to the craft and boundless faith God rewarded her by giving her tuberculosis and taking her home to heaven in short order. But from beyond the grave she reaches out still, even unto the sidebar of my humble blog. Amen.