Hello, Shrine Family, 

  After a noisy and rough spring tornado season, summer has arrived rather gently.  Even though temperatures have been in the low 90s, so far we have had either a little cloud cover or a breeze to make it much more bearable.

  Many of you have called the shrine checking on us during the tornadoes.  We appreciate your thoughtfulness.  A few of the tornadoes got really close, one or two even passed overhead, but fortunately none of them touched down in our area.  We were out of electricity for a couple days, and incurred some roof damage, but everyone is safe.

  Approximately 14 million Americans (about 5% of the population) have diabetes.  Unfortunately, as many as one-half are unaware that they have it.  Apparently there is no official saint of Diabetics yet, however many ask for the intercession of the relatively new saint, St. Pauline Visintainer.  St. Pauline lost her right hand to diabetes, but continued crocheting and helping the orphaned & enslaved children of Brazil.  After much searching, we were able to locate some medals & prayer cards with a prayer for diabetics from the St. Pauline Visintainer Center in Kulpmont, PA.  We have these available thru the gift shop.  The medals sell for .50 each and the prayer cards sell for .60 each.  The feast day for St. Pauline is July 9th. 

  The National Shrine has scheduled a blood drive to be held on Sunday, July 18th from 12:00-3:00.  Since this will be Pilgrimage Sunday, hopefully we will have a large number of donors.  You must be at least 17 years old, weight at least 110 pounds and have a photo ID.  It takes only 8-10 minutes to donate.  If you know that you want to give, it could possibly save you waiting time to call the shrine office at 405-567-3080 to schedule a time.  You do not have to make an appointment.  Each donor will receive a green t-shirt with zebra print on it and two tickets to the OKC Zoo.

  While I did not intend for this newsletter to be a "health" issue, it appears that it is.  I was pleasantly surprised a couple weeks ago when a visitor brought her statue in for us to see.  She not only had the Infant Jesus of Prague statue, but also the Infant of Good Health.  Research into this devotion states that it goes hand in hand with the Infant Jesus of Prague.  He just takes on a little stronger role in the health field.  About a week after she was in, one of the shrine employees was going thru some cards with medals attached that we have sole for years.  These cards have the picture of the Infant Jesus of Prague and a medal of same attached.  Lo and behold, there were three cards that had a different medal attached.  Yes, you guessed it - it was a medal of the Infant of Good Health.  When the company was called so that more could be ordered, we were told that they don't sell Infant of Good Health medals.  They were amazed when we told them we found some in our inventory from them.  We were able to locate some Infant of Good Health medals which are gold in color and sell for only $.50.

  Enjoy your summer...check often on elderly people who live alone.  May the Infant Jesus bless you with the gift of good health so you may spread His devotion wherever you may go.

Rhonda Bartos

Shrine Director