March 29, 2023
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August: Sisters Rita & Philomena
St. Rita of Cascia is often credited as also being the unofficial patron saint of baseball due to a reference made to her in the 2002 film The Rookie, starring Dennis Quaid. Based on a true story, it’s a baseball tale that opens with a couple of nuns sprinkling rose petals from a basket while praying to St. Rita over the site of an oil well near the little town of Big Lake in west Texas in the 1920s.According to the movie’s narrator, the nuns invested money in an oil well scheme that turned sour. A Catholic priest advised them to pray to St. Rita, the patron St. of the impossible, and sprinkle rose petals on the well site. It eventually worked!During the 21 months it took for the well to start spouting oil, the crew built a baseball field near the well, and some of the members got to be very good ball players.St. Philomena, whose name means "Daughter of Light," is one of the earliest known Christian martyrs. She is also a patron saint of baseball. When she refused to marry the Emperor Diocletian, she was scourged, thrown into a river with an anchor around her neck, and shot through with arrows. Miraculously, she survived! Finally, she was beheaded.So many miracles were attributed to her, she became known as "The Wonder Worker." Hence, the reason she’s the patron saint of baseball. She can work wonders!Her feast day is August 11. -
August - Like Nun-other
A few weeks ago, the ABC-TV show, To Tell the Truth, featured a panel of three women. One of them had been a member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
The center contestant was Toni Ann “Peanuts” Palermo, who played professional baseball as a member of the Chicago Colleens and, later, the Springfield Sallies from 1949 to 1950.
She’s also a School Sister of St. Francis.
Born in in Forest Park, IL, a suburb of Chicago, Sr. Toni Ann began playing professional softball with the Parichy Bloomer Girls at age 11. One year later, she was invited to spring training in Cuba with the (AAGPBL), and at 14 was asked to go on tour with the league. In In 1982, she was inducted into the National Women’s Baseball Hall of Fame and was honored at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
In a recent interview, Sr. Toni Ann reflected on her journey. “God has had his hand guiding me on this journey since day one. If anyone should have never entered the convent, it was yours truly,” she joked. “When we were on tour, my roommate was a staunch Catholic and she would say, ‘Toni, get up, we’re going to Mass’ … most of the time I had to get up because she was forceful.”
Of course, she had her own opinions of the movie, “A League of Their Own,” based on the women’s league. “We were much better players than what was portrayed in the movie; we were skilled,” she said. “But the movie was important because it brought attention to the league."
Prior to entering the convent in 1954, Sr. Toni Ann was invited to play for the South Bend (Indiana) Blue Sox, the reigning league champions. She had gone to spring training in Indiana, but had committed to going to the convent in September of that year because she felt another calling to serve God.
She ended up joining the School Sisters of St. Francis, earned a bachelor’s degree in English, history and math from Alverno College, Milwaukee. From 1956 to 1970, she taught elementary school and high school theology in the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois.
In 1970, she began studies at UW-Madison and received three master’s degrees in psychiatric social work, kinesiology and physical education and educational policy.
She credits her time playing baseball as a strong influence on her ministry.
“Baseball taught me discipline and how to be coachable,” she said. “In life we have to be coachable (or you) just don’t grow. In every sport I’ve been in you have to be coachable; that’s truly how our lives go.”