100,000th page view less than a month away (probably)

Conversion of St. Hubert, Studio of the Master of the Life of the Virgin

Inigo Hicks will reach the prestigious 100,000 page view plateau soon.  The contest to guess the day this historic event will actually happen is still going on, and it's pretty wide open, since to date we have received only one guess.   As of right now, we've had 97,860 page views, and we've been getting around 2,500 page views a month.  The prize for the first person to guess the date Inigo Hicks hits 100,000 page views is a rosary custom made by the Sisters of Carmel, who make the best rosaries on the web.  Everybody gets one guess.


The rosary has black oval cocoa wood beads on a black cord, an Our Lady of Fatima centerpiece, and a St. Benedict crucifix.  It was supposed to have a St. Ignatius medal attached to the centerpiece, but I must have clicked the wrong button, because it has a St. Hubert medal instead.   For those not familiar with St. Hubert (c. 656–727 A.D) here is his story.  After his wife died in childbirth, St. Hubert spent all his time hunting in the Ardennes forest.   According to legend, one Good Friday, when everybody else was in church, Hubert was out hunting in the forest when he had a vision of a stag with a crucifix between its antlers.  Hubert also heard a voice saying "Hubert, unless thou turnest to the Lord, and leadest an holy life, thou shalt quickly go down into hell".  Hubert duly turned to the Lord, giving away his possessions, becoming a priest and eventually a bishop.  His feast day is Nov. 3.  It would be kind of interesting if that turns out to be the day this blog hits 100,000 page views.

Another interesting thing about this contest is that the prize was lost for about a month.  The Sisters of Carmel emailed me that they shipped it on the same day as another rosary I'd ordered a few weeks earlier.  The other rosary arrived, but the prize rosary didn't.  After a few days passed, and the prize rosary still hadn't arrived, I assumed the rosaries had been shipped in the same package and I'd accidentally thrown out the prize rosary along with the packaging of the rosary that was delivered.  The rosary was in a pretty big envelope with a lot of plastic peanuts so it was possible the prize rosary was in there but I didnt see it.  I didn't want to hassle the Sisters of Carmel about it, so I said a prayer to St. Anthony of Padua, the go-to saint when you need help finding a lost object, and figured I'd have to order a replacement.  After about a month, though, I got an email from the Sisters of Carmel telling me they'd found the rosary, and would ship it right away.  That was a little weird, since I never told them I didn't receive the rosary.  I've also been imagining how the discovery of the unshipped rosary might have taken place.

"Who keeps leaving their rosary on the "Rosaries to be Shipped" table?  I swear this one has been here everyday for at least a month."

"It's not mine."
"It's not mine."
"It's not mine."
"I keep my rosary in this small, holster-like device."

"Fine, then whose is it?"

"Maybe that rosary needs to be shipped to somebody.  That's probably why it's on the "Rosaries to be Shipped" table."

"Hmm."

Anyway, the rosary finally arrived, and it's a beauty.

Please enter your guess in the comments section of this post.

St. Hubert and St. Anthony of Padua, pray for us.