Saints represented in Saint Arlecchino
It takes lot of prayer, good works, faith, contrition, sometimes
martyrdom and more than 2 miracles to become a saint. But there's no hard, fast
rule
and there are investigations, a debate between the Devil's Advocate and
God's, a declaration of beatitude and all kinds of red tape before one is
canonized. Pope John Paul II has canonized more saints than any other
pope.
Since the Pope can talk directly to God he might know something that we
don't and feels we need all the good examples and protection we can get in
these uncertain times.
Saint Bernard, patron of writers
Saint Bernard is noted for being very
chaste and very dedicated to Mary, Mother of God, and to his own mother.
Tormented whenever in the company of women besides his mom or the Blessed
Virgin, he'd sometimes throw himself into freezing lakes to avoid them.
After a long, anguished prayer session, Mary appeared to Bernard in a vision
and squirted her Holy Mother's Milk into his mouth, making him
golden-voiced. He used this power to inspire thousands to enlist in one
of
the crusades against the infidels. Onward Christian soldiers!
Saint Catherine of Siena , patron of the sick
There are at least 19
Saint
Catherines but Catherine of Siena is a favorite. She had an easy, rich
life
but just couldn't enjoy it with all the suffering in the world so she begged
Jesus to take on some of His burden. Artists often depict the baby
Jesus placing a wedding ring on her finger. Catherine lived for a time
on only the communion wafer. Asceticism or anorexia? She might
have wanted to look
good for her younger husband. Catherine was so dedicated to helping
the sick that she drank their pus. We do not recommend this unless
approved and
supervised by God. Catherine suffered a long, painful sickness before
she
died and we don't wonder why.
Saint Christopher, former patron of travelers
The church found out he
was
only a legend and have since declared him no longer a saint. But people
still pray to him for protection while traveling, wear St. Christopher
medallions and place figures of him in their cars. The legend of
Christopher was that he was a giant of 16 feet tall. A child asked
Christopher to carry him across a river. The kid was really heavy, even
for
a giant, and when he was set down on the other bank he revealed to
Christopher that he was the infant Jesus. Thus Christopher had been
carrying the weight of the world. We're not sure how the church found
out
this wasn't true.
Saint Clement
A possible winner of the saintly endurance contest, over
the
course of 28 years, Saint Clement had spikes stuck in his face, his feet
crushed, was tied to a wheel and beaten with sticks, was stoned on the
cheeks and lips, whipped, burned, buried alive, had his teeth pulled out,
his skin torn off with iron combs, was fed to bears, red-hot pokers under
the nails, laid on a white-hot grid, thrown onto spikes, metal hooks in the
skin... you get the picture. We hear Mel Gibson's directing the movie.
Like a lot of saints, Clement was really hard to kill because of his
unshakable faith. It's a sin to commit suicide and we believe the lesson
of
Saint Clement might be that it pleases God more for us to endure long,
excruciatingly painful lives than to have quick, easy deaths. But we'll
be
rewarded in Heaven.
Saint Isidore, patron of farmers
Saint Isidore prayed from morning to
night. Isidore's boss thought that interfered with his work as a farmer
but
from God's' point of view, farming interfered with Isidore's prayer time.
Isidore told his boss he had to follow the Higher Master. We do not
recommend using this excuse except to very devout workers. God fixed
Isidore's workplace problems by sending an angel to plow Isidore's fields.
That shut the boss up. We consider this the saintly gravy train.
Lucifer, Bringer of Light, the devil
Once God's most trusted, beloved
archangel. He felt pride and rebelled against God along with some other
bad-apple angels starting a War in Heaven. Lucifer and the renegade angels
were banished to Hell. Lucifer goes by many names (a sure sign of
untrustworthiness) such as Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, and Satan. Despite
having been a beautiful angel he now regularly appears as a scaly, horned
red guy with a tail. But he can take any guise to tempt us so always
be on
alert!
The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven
The
most amazing
human to ever live, not including Jesus (who was really more than human
having been begotten, not made, from God, the Father). Mary was born
sinless to her mother, Saint Anne. Later an angel appeared to her, an
unmarried woman, and announced that she would give birth to God's Son.
Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. Even though she was pregnant, Joseph still
married her, becoming Jesus' step dad and making him worthy of sainthood.
Mary gave birth to Jesus but her hymen was miraculously restored afterwards
so she is the eternal virgin yet Mother of God. She's also the only human
assumed into Heaven (The Ascension) as opposed to going through the regular
deaths we other mortals endure. She regularly appears to good Catholics
in
heavenly visions sometimes to talk about world peace or just to ask them
to baby-sit the infant Jesus.
Michael, archangel, patron of warriors
A
leader of the angels, Michael is
a prince of Heaven. He lead the battle against the devil in the War in
Heaven and it's prophesied in Revelations that he and Lucifer will have a
rematch during the Apocalypse. Michael's tough and often gets the job
of
banishment, presumably because he did such a good job banishing Satan. If
you want to win a fight, pray to him.
Saint Nicholas, patron of children
The Bishop
of Myra and the basis of
Santa Claus, but a much tougher character, Nicholas was sort of a medieval
superhero, helping those in need, especially children and the helpless.
Once, he saved many sailors lives by stopping a terrible storm with prayer.
Another story says there was a man who had no money for dowries and was
considering prostituting his three daughters. Nicholas, hearing this,
left
three balls of gold for the daughters on three different nights thus saving
their reputations and letting them attract reputable husbands. This is
the
origin for Santa leaving presents at night and for the symbol of three balls
hanging over many pawn shops. Nick is also known to have brought three
boys
back to life with prayer but you'll want to see our play for that story.
Saint Rose of Lima, patron against vanity and for the Americas
The
first
saint of the New World , she was extremely beautiful but so devoted to Jesus
that she cut off all her hair and scarred her face and hands by scratching
and with lye and pepper so as not to tempt men or to become vain herself.
She went so far as to wear a hair shirt with iron nails woven in, a crown
of thorns, and to carry a cross in imitation of Christ. Once, when she had
a
moment of understandable doubt and weakness, she heard a celestial voice
say, "My suffering was more still." Apparently it was a competition.
Saint Simeon Stylite
Simeon lived on the top of a column for 37 years,
exposed to sun, wind, rain, and probably pigeons. Simeon is another ascetic
who once took a fast for 40 days. No food, water or anything. In
his quest
for perfection Simeon didn't do anything half-way. Thinking outside the
usual ascetic box he started standing upright and still for as long as
possible. This started attracting crowds so he built himself a column
to
get away from them. His first column was just 10 feet high. The
crowds
didn't go away so he had to keep going up, building higher and higher
columns stopping at about 60 feet. He remained a great attraction,
inspiring heathens to be baptized and a group of imitators called Stylites,
or column-standing saints.
Saint Sithney, patron of mad dogs
Very little is known about Saint Sithney
anymore. He's rarely mentioned in the saint dictionaries but his well
is in
England and people take their dogs there to drink it's holy water. Part
of
what we know is that he was a rather contrary guy, maybe because of all the
contrition, and once cursed a woman for washing her clothes in his well.
After that the woman's child went missing but Sithney miraculously found
him, canceling out his own curse. God offered him the post of patron
of
girls but Sithney made the crack that he'd rather be patron of mad dogs than
girls so God made him patron of mad dogs, rabies and hydrophobia.
We're not saint experts but we learned a lot about them from the web sites
linked above, from saint encyclopedias, and from our saint sage, Queen Rita
Jane Zita Wolf Berg. We give thanks to them and to Saint Mathurin,
patron of clowns, fools, and epilepsy! |
