Prudence Thorne

I confess: Prudence Thorne is a pen-name. (Because really, who in the mid-80s in the United States named their kid Prudence? Not my parents, and not many others either. According to a quick search on Name Statistics, only 0.0004% of females in the US are named Prudence.)

I shall not reveal my true identity (just yet) in case this blog becomes super successful (a girl can dream, right?) so as to protect the innocence of anyone I may incriminate mention (or have mentioned) in (previous or) future posts.

So why Prudence Thorne?

Well let's start with Prudence. According to Merriam-Webster:

pru·dence noun \ˈprü-d^ən(t)s\

1: the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason

2: sagacity or shrewdness in the management of affairs

3: skill and good judgment in the use of resources
4: caution or circumspection as to danger or risk 

Prudence is also one of the four cardinal virtues. The Catholic Encyclopedia entry uses big words and intellectual mumbo jumbo so... jumping over to Wikipedia, prudence is "often associated with wisdom, insight, and knowledge" and "is the ability to judge between virtuous and vicious actions, not only in a general sense, but with regard to appropriate actions at a given time and place." Basically, it's the Father of the virtues, and Thomas Aquinas really liked it so it must be good, right?

There's ol' Tom.

Now... it'd be really arrogant of me to suggest that I am perfectly prudent, because I'm not. I do try to be reasonable... but hey, let's face it, I'm a girl. Girls are weird: We jump to conclusions and do stupid things sometimes. (And doing stupid things isn't very prudent.) So choosing the name Prudence was really more of an effort to remind myself to always try to exercise this virtue when the estrogen gets all out of whack and makes me do stupid things...

Thorne. Ha. This is really funny, because it took me three days to come up with a [good] blog name and monicker. On the third night it just sorta hit me. In the 3-day thought process, though, I knew I wanted to do something with thorns because Priest-Friend keeps telling me (I think jokingly?) that I'm the "thorn in his side, a la St. Jerome." In fact, I almost named this blog "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" but thought you might get the Bret Michael's song stuck in your head so I opted not to do that. (I apologize if that happened anyway from mentioning it here...) So.. while I was still in mid-thought process, I went to a random name generator website and what was the first name it generated? SomethingreallyrandomthatIcan'tremembernow THORNE. Now is that divine intervention or what?

St. Jerome liked to write.

[TANGENTIAL SIDENOTE: When I Google-Image-Searched "Divine Intervention," pictures of Thomas Aquinas came up in the Top how-ever-many-they-show-you Searches. Talk about your Divine Intervention!]

So... Thorne it is. And just to add on to the awesomeness of this monicker, I give you a FANTASTIC quote from a FANTASTIC lady... MOTHER ANGELICA. She suggests:

"If you're not a thorn in somebody's side, you aren't doing Christianity right."

Bazinga! How bout them apples? Finally. I'm doing something right!