St. Michael the Archangel  Patron of Policemen, Paratroopers, Radiologists, the Dying, Grocers;  Invoked again Peril at Sea

The Archangel Michael figures prominently in Judaism and Islam, as well as in Christianity.  He appeared to Moses in the burning bush, discoursed with Abraham, inspired Joan of Arc—and the Koran states his tears from the cherubim.  Majestic in appearance, with a tremendous wingspan, Michael is described in the Koran as having “wings the color of green emerald..covered with saffron hairs, each of them containing a million faces.”  He is God’s commander-in-chief in the war against the Devil and, in his dramatic confrontation with Satan defeated an army of 133 million and hurled the fallen Angel down to Hell, bellowing, “I am Michael, Who is like God!”  As Guardian Angel of Israel, Michael single-handedly wiped out an Assyrian army of 185,000 men, was responsible for the victory of Judas Maccabaeus, and wrested Moses’ dead body from the Devil (who felt the prophet belonged in Hell for killing an Egyptian).  In modern times, the Devil, seeking revenge on his old enemy, flew up to earth, terrifying the workers of the church of St. Michael in Cornhill, England, and leaving his claw marks on the bells.  Michael became extremely popular after he appeared on battlefields in Italy, France, and England during various world wars, even commandeering a plane during World War II.  He defended a convent of nuns in England during the Reformation, protected a party of schoolgirls from robbers, and vanquished the enemies of an Italian town by use of his lighting.  After Pope Leo XIII had an out-of-body experience in which he saw Michael victorious over the horrors of hell, he wrote his famous prayer to the Angel-Saint that is still used at the end of Mass.  Michael is so powerful a force in Heaven that he can get people out of hell and will assist with the judging on Judgment Day.  At the end of the world he will return to earth for the final battle with the Antichrist.  He is depicted in art wearing his shield and carrying his scales, ready to fight or to judge.

 

St. Vincent’s Hospital Greenwich Village NYC

September 27  St. Vincent de Paul  Patron of charities, horses, lepers, prisoners

The son of a swineherd, Vincent was ordained a priest in 1600 when he was just nineteen.  He landed a cushy job as chaplain to a noble family at Folleville thenbegan to visit the impoverished peasants of the countryside.  Realizing the deplorable physical and moral state of the poor (he heard some shocking confessions), he founded the Vincentians, an order of priests dedicated to ministering to the oppressed.  With the help of St. Louise de Marillac he next established the Sisters of Charity.  The compassion of “Monsieur Vincent” was legendary—he set up a sort of welfare system for the French proletariat.  Like their founder the Vincentians were devoted to invalids, orphans, war victims, convicts, and galley slaves.  Vincent himself once traded places with a convict in the galleys, having heard the man despair of ever again seeing his wife and children.  The Saint slaved for weeks until his followers bought his freedom although his ankles were permanently swollen from the shackles he had worn.

September 21 St. Matthew Patron of tax collectors, accountants, bankers, CFO’s & security guards

No one knows how or where Matthew died–some legends tell of a mission to a faraway cannibal isle that ended badly for the evangelist.  Matthew had been an exile even among his own people, a Jewish tax collector, despised by Jews as an agent of the occupying Romans and by gentiles as an extortionist.  Christ thus challenged public opinion when he gave Matthew the call to “follow me,” as recounted in Matthew’s own Gospel.  When Matthew describes Jesus dining with “people of ill repute,” he is talking about himself.  Matthew undertook the writing of this Gospel under special instructions from the Holy Ghost, composing it particularly for Jewish Christians and employing his wide knowledge of Jewish customs.  His is the most “popular” Gospel, the one that tells the story of the Star of Bethlehem, the flight into Egypt, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Passion .  It was made into a movie in  1964 by the avant-garde filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini.  In his great novel The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis, rather irreverently, persisted in describing our Saint as “hairy-eared.”

September 20  St. Eustace  Patron of veterinarians, hunters; invoked agains difficult situations, family problems

Eustace was a wealthy and powerful Roman general—a captain of the guards under the emperor Trajan—who, while hunting one day in the woods, near Tivoli, Italy, encountered a stag with a luminous crucifix between its antlers while a heavenly voice prophesied, “Thou shalt suffer many things for My sake.” Eustace immediately converted to Christianity as did his wife and their two sons.  The prophecy came true with a vengeance.  Eustace was drummed out of the army and reduced to abject poverty.  Pirates kidnapped his wife.  Wild beasts carried off his sons.  Years later, in a time of need, the emperor recalled his trusted officer.  Back in Rome, Eustace was overjoyed to discover that his sons had miraculously survived and were actually serving under his command!  And by a greater miracle his wife reappeared, alive and not much the worse for wear.  But the family’s celebration was short-lived.  Ordered to worship idols, they refused.  They survived exposure to lions in the amphitheater, only to be roasted to death in the belly of a brass bull.  Something in the tale touched the heart of medieval man—the Happy Ending?—and churches in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and France (most notably the spectacular church in the Les Halles section of Paris) are named after him.

 

September 18  St. Joseph of Cupertino  Patron of astronauts, pilots, the Air Force. 

The famous “flying monk” was born in a garden shed because his father, who died soon after his birth, had sold the house to pay off debts.  His widowed mother resented her slow, pigeon-toed son, and the other children called him “Boccaperta”  (“the Gaper”) because his mouth always hung open.  He joined the Franciscans as a servant but  a lucky break enabled him to become a novice—the exam he was given was based on the only text he was able to read.  He became more devout and was so happy to be a friar that he mailed his underwear back to his mother, because his habit was all the needed (he didn’t remove it for two years).  Soon after he became a priest, his famous levitations began: according to his biographers, Joseph levitated over 100 times.  He was able to fly high above the altar and once helped workmen by lifting a huge cross thirty-six feet in the air and then stayed perched on top of the cross for several hours.  Fellow friars soon took to flying around on his back.  During his flights he would issue shrill cries and afterward dissolve into fits of laughter.  The Spanish ambassador arrived for an interview with the “flying friar,” but as soon as Joseph entered the church he spied a statue of Mary (to whom he had a special devotion), and flew over the heads of the Spanish entourage, settled for a while at the foot of the statue, then flew back over the crowd, shrieking, and headed toward his room.  Christmas carols were especially moving to him and as soon as they started, Joseph would fly straight upward in a kneeling position and stay that way until the caroling stopped.  Church authorities, disturbed by this phenomenon and accusing him of “drawing crowds after him like a new Messiah,” placed him in seclusion,  making him a prisoner.  But pilgrims kept finding him, so Joseph was moved from place to place, his notoriety preceding him.  The controversy around the Saint, who could also predict the future, caused him to slip into deep melancholia.  His last flight was, appropriately enough, on the Feast of the Assumption a month before his death, in 1663.before his

St. Hildegarde of Bingen  Patron of herbalists, philosophers

A feminist favorite, Hildegarde’s visions began when she was a child prompting her parents to dedicate her to the Church and ship her off to a peculiar German recluse St. Jutta.  The two became anchorites together—their lives were so ascetic that the only link they had to the world was a tiny widow in their tiny room.  Then, at age forty-two, Hildegarde experienced a vision of God that changed her life—despite her lack of formal education she now completely understood even the most complicated theological texts.  After this experience she left her hermitage to become a respected adviser to kings and popes, an abbess, a poet, illustrator, playwright and composer, even inventing New Age music!  Hildegarde also found time to become a herbalist and expert on homeopathic medicine.  She wrote a medical text covering topics from blood circulation to obsessive compulsive disorder. Hildegarde ran afoul of her bishop who demanded she disinter a nobleman buried on her convent’s properly since the dead man had been excommunicated. She defied the order contending that the dead man had received the last rites thereby nullifying the excommunication. The bishop proceeded to excommunicate Hildegarde and forbade the nuns in her convent to chant or receive communion.  She’s been the subject of several movies, books and a plant genus  Hildegardia is named after her due to her contributions to herbal medicine,

September 16 St. Protus and Hyacinth  Patrons of costume designers

Protus and Hyacinth were two eunuchs who secretly converted to Christianity along with their mistress, Eugenia, the daughter of the Roman consul.  The trio, with Eugenia disguised as a boy, escaped to a monastery in the desert.  After three years, Eugenia was made abbot, but soon became an object of lust for a local woman, whom she rebuffed.  The scorned woman alleged that the abbot had made an attack on her honor.  When the abbot/Eugenia appeared at court before her father, her mother instantly recognized her.  The parents were reconciled with their child and became instant converts.  Protus and Hyacinth got busy baptizing the rest of the nobility causing a great commotion in Rome.  In the end, all suffered martyrdom except for Eurgenia’s mother, who flew to Heaven.  The Oxford Dictionary of Saints gives a less colorful rendition of the lives of these eunuchs, simply maintaining that they were brother martyrs and “teachers of Christian Law.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xHvxHCdG3E                                                  Fat Thursday celebration (Weiberfastnacht)* at Maternus’s House, Cologne

September 15 St. Maternus   Patron of lighthouse keepers

Today is the feast of Maternus, a Saint who could say Mass in Trier, Tongres, and Cologne simultaneously, 4^th Century

 

September 14 St. Notburga Patron of women in labor, servants,  peasants

Her Tyrolean childhood ended when Notburga was placed as a servant in the castle of the nasty count and countess of Rattenberg, who shamelessly used her as a drudge, mocking her for having only one eye.  Still, Notburga grew fat, making “a feast of the affronts head on her.”  When the cruel countess discovered Notburga giving to the poor instead of to the pigs, she fired her, and the Saint went to work for a farmer.  Now Notburga was upset when the farmer wanted her to work Saturday evening—technically the Sabbath—because he feared the weather would change.  She threw her sickle in the air, where it hung suspended, looking like the harvest moon, the sign of good weather to come. Four hundred years after her death, Notburga’s body was dug up by local residents who, in a gesture of questionable taste, dressed the skeleton in a red velvet gown with blue bows. Then they placed it in a glass case over the altar of a new church erected in her name.

September 13  St. Pulcheria   Patron of empresses, betrayal victims; invoked agains in-law problems

Her parents were the Byzantine emperor and empress, and Pulcheria briefly served as regent until her young brother Theodosius, a gifted calligrapher, was able to ascend to the throne.  Pulcheria instructed Theodosius on the basics of church and state, secretly realizing that he was too weak and, yes, too artsy-fartsy, to be an effective emperor.  Giving nary a thought to herself, Pulcheria took a vow of chastity and stayed active in public life until her brother took a bride, Eudocia.  The doughty Saint then departed for a life of solitary prayer—only to be recalled after Eudocia fell from favor because of a liaison with a gouty officer.  Theodosius died, and Pulcheria married—it was a celibate, or Josephite, union, of curse—an upstanding general named Marcian.  They reigned together over Byzantium, building churches, hospitals, and a university