Saint Isidore, Pray for Us!

Dear Friends of Chiara,

I apologize for being incommunicado for over a month! Then again, I guess I couldn't live up to my St. Clare's ideals unless I became "cloistered" for a little while! In any event, thank you all for your patience!

My absence can be best explained by some major technical difficulties I've been experiencing with my blog's title and sidebar graphics- I designed the major elements of the blog when I was in college and had free access to Dreamweaver and a place to store my graphics. However, Dreamweaver is not an inexpensive program, so after graduation I lost access to it- which left me to the mercy of my very basic HTML skills. The biggest problem has been finding a free website where I can store my title and sidebar graphics; the site I've been using for the past couple of years hasn't been very reliable, and the problem was compounded when the site underwent major changes last month. If anyone knows a reliable website where I can store my graphics for free, please let me know!

After going through this, I began wondering if there was a patron Saint of the internet- I figured if there is a patron Saint of television (my own Saint Clare!), then there should be a patron of computers and the internet. Lo and behold, the Church creatively named St. Isidore of Seville as the official patron Saint of computers and the internet. Here's a short explanation as to how the Church arrived at that decision:

So, how does Saint Isidore of Seville become the patron saint for the Internet? The Observation Service for Internet, who drew it's mission from the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, researched the Internet and related technologies to select a patron saint that best reflects the concerns and ideals of computer designers, programmers and users. The saint chosen by the Observation Service for Internet was Saint Isidore. "The saint who wrote the well-known 'Etymologies' (a type of dictionary), gave his work a structure akin to that of the database. He began a system of thought known today as 'flashes;' it is very modern, notwithstanding the fact it was discovered in the sixth century. Saint Isidore accomplished his work with great coherence: it is complete and its features are complementary in themselves.

I will be going on a short vacation for the next week or so, but to paraphrase Our Lord when He ascended into Heaven...I will be back very soon! Thank you so much for your patience. Pax et Bonum!