Extra Reading Diary Post: Saints and Animals

In the unit Saints and Animals unit, my absolute favorite story was The Wolf-Mother of Saint Ailbe.  It was a wonderful story about a wolf foster mother who took in a human baby to raise as one of her own.  This story made me think about my own life and how similar it is to this story.  I was engrossed in this story from the minute I started reading it and couldn't wait to find out how it ended.  It was like I was reading the story of my own life, but written from a foster child's perspective.

In the beginning, the parents abandon the child and this is an unfortunate commonality with fostering in present day.  The children are found in horrible conditions or without parental supervision at all, and then they are given to foster parents to raise.  As in this story, the wolf foster mother loved the child as if he was her own pup.  She did not treat the human child any differently then her biological pups.  This is the same way that good foster parents feel about their foster children.  We love them, even when they don't look or act like us, and we raise them as a member of our family until they are reunified with their parents (or other family members) or become a permanent, legal part of our own family.  When the human baby was taken from the wolf mother, her heart broke for the loss of that child.  As foster parents, we do mourn the loss of a child when they are returned to their biological family, but we also know that is the goal from the beginning of our journey with the child.  After many years Saint Ailbe grew up in the castle with his new family, but also longed and thought about his wolf family too.  This is also a normal part of a foster child's journey.  We've had children who have grown up after leaving our home and have looked us up so that they could see us again.  I loved how Saint Ailbe saved his wolf mother and took care of her and her family after the hunters had captured her.  Often times when we see kids after they've left our home, they are extremely excited to see us and talk to us again.  As in this story, the wolf mother has fears and reservations about the child's new family, but they all became a happy family in the end.  We have also had many similar happy ending with our former foster children and their biological families. 

Saint Ailbe

Reading Dairy A: Week 3--Saints & Animals Unit

My favorite story from the Saints and Animals unit is the story of Saint Blaise and His Beasts.

Saint Blaise icon

The story is about a boy who is born to a wealthy family, but chooses to be something different than the other boys around him.  He loved all animals and wanted to take care of them, as well as, people too.  When he grew up, he studied medicine and chose to heal the sick...wild animals, tame animals, people, etc.  All the animals loved him too because he took care of them with kindness and love in his heart.  He decided to go live in the forest among the animals.  A cave became his home and all the animals came to see him and never disturbed him if he was in prayer.  He had chosen to be a Christian in a time where Christians were not treated kindly.  Once the Christians around him chose him to become their Bishop, the people and animals rejoiced.  But little did the animals know that making his faith known would put him in harms way.  For there was a cruel Emperor ruling over the land and he enjoyed torturing Christians.  Once it became known to the Emperor that Blaise was a Christian, and a highly revered one at that, he sent out his men to find him.  His men found him in his home, the cave in the forest, and were amazed at how the animals treated him.  After they got over their amazement, they captured Blaise and took him to the Emperor's prison.  They tortured him, tried to drown him and finally ended up beheading him at the end of the story.  All of the animals and Christian people were deeply saddened when Blaise was finally killed.

The part I like most about the story is the character, Blaise.  I can relate to him because I love all animals dearly too.  I love where we live in Moore because there is such a wide variety of wild and tame animal life around my home.  I would never harm an animal and neither did Saint Blaise.  My chosen career path is also in the medical field where I can help people.  Blaise chose medicine while I chose Psychology.  They are similar in the chosen field, but he chose to heal the body while I choose to heal the mind.  I also admire Blaise's tenacity to stick to his faith and not waver in his decision.  I feel the same way about sticking to my moral and principles.  Overall, I felt that this story was my favorite and the one story I could relate to the most in the unit.