Nobody can deny that one’s path towards whatever is deemed to be a success can be pushed along with a good contact. All those who in some way either with money or with sycophancy contributed to Trump’s election are now reaping the benefits. In some case experience is not necessary.

For those who are not Roman Catholics or High Church of England there has always been this problem of not understanding the role of Christ’s mother Mary into the scheme of what makes Catholics revere her.

It has all to do with that most important word, intercession, commonly explained by the expression go-between.

If you ask the Virgin Mary, perhaps with the help of a rosary or in a direct prayer for help in appealing to her Son to help you retain your job or cure your terminal disease you have good grounds for this. After all it was in that wedding where wine was run out that the man giving the feast appealed to Christ’s mother. And wine did pour.

In the same way Catholics appeal to saints, particularly those known for some specialty, to help them. My mother and grandmother who had a penchant for losing one from a pair of earrings were often asking St. Anthony of Padua to help them find the lost article. And they used a quid-pro-quo approach. If we find the earring we will donate 10 pesos to charity. But if you don’t…

Think of any trade, profession or whatever and there is a patron saint for it. In Mexico drug smugglers have la Santa Muerte..

Another custom much on the way out is naming your child when it is born by the name of the saint of the day. This is why there are so many women in Mexico (as an example called by that ungainly name of Petra). Worse still is naming a girl Mary. In Spanish there are many versions (variations) of the Virgin Mary. There is Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (which means all those Mexican women called Lupe are in reality called María de Guadalupe.

Worse are those named after our Lady of Perpetual Help (Nuestra Señora del  Perpetuo Socorro). They usually go by the shorter Socorro or even shorte Soco. Imagine shouting after her ¡Socorro! ¡Socorro! Are you asking for help because you are in a fix perhaps going down for the third time in a raging and deep river or just calling for a friend?

Worse of all are those women (usually from every Spanish speaking country except Argentina, and I will explain) called María de la Inmaculada Concepción. These Marías are always called by the shorter Concepción and by the affectionate Conchita. That is verboten in Argentina.

Thanks to Linnaeus who thought that the sexual organs of a clam resembled that of a human woman in English a clam can be more than just a clam. I do not have to go any further, I believe.

In Argentina a concha (clam shell) is what a woman has that men don’t. This would make it certain that any visiting Conchitas to Buenos Aires will assert that their name is María.

I wrote here about Saint Isidore of Seville who the most Christian Spaniards have designated to be the patron saint of the internet.

I think that this is a splendid choice for the man who first used the word cama or bed. But I would also like to propose here that there is a version of the Virgin Mary, Nuestra Señora del Internet who we can appeal to intercede for us when our computer crashes.

Saintly Derivations