St. Marcel of Paris    Invoked against vampires

Educated and ordained in Paris Marcel showed a flair for the dramatics, even in his youth, holding iron bars in his hands and turning water into wine.  He was a welcome relief as bishop of  Paris after his strict predecessor, Pudentius, and the city loved him.  When a rich and dissolute woman was buried in a cemetery, a black serpent wormed his way out of her grave, exposing the corpse and nibbling on its grisly remains, which cause quite a scandal. Marcel, in full bishop regalia, with le tout Paris  following him, confronted the ghoulish serpent.  Ignoring its threatening hisses, the Saint clobbered the fiend with his staff, wrapped it in his robe and dragged it out of the cemetery.

St. Sithney  Patron of Mad Dogs

A sixth-century Cornish monk, Sithney was known for his holy misogyny.  He once roundly cursed a housewife for ding her was in his well—and the woman’s brat promptly disappeared.  It was widely assumed the child had plunged from a nearby cliff, and Sithney heard some criticism about it, but he himself soon discovered the toddler quite unharmed, playing on the beach below.  For reasons of His own, God once offered Sithney the post of Patron of girls.  The Saint objected that the flighty creatures would ne forever pestering him to supply them with fine clothes and/or husbands.  He protested that he’d rather e Patron of mad dogs.  And so he is.

 

Sara and gypsy gals

St. Sara   Patron of Gypsies

Each year on this day, Gypsies gather in Provence, France, to celebrate the feast of Sara, their highly unofficial Patron Saint.  They believe her to have been a servant of the “Three Marys”—Mary, the wife of Cleophas; Mary Salome, the mother of James; and Mary Magdalene.  Together with Saints Lazarus and Martha, this company sailed, after Christ’s Ascension into Heaven, in a rudderless boat from Palestine to Marseilles.  Sara is pictured as swarthy; the Gypsies say she was of Indian descent and also answers to the name of Kali.

October 23  St. Bonaventure   Invoked against diseases of the bowels

A Franciscan monk of Amalfi famous for his humility and unquestioning obedience to authority, Bonaventure died (aged sixty) of acute intestinal distress (probably an extreme precursor of todays irritable bowel syndrome)—but also in a state of ecstasy induced by relentless psalm singing.  His religious superior ordered, for reasons of his own, the corpse of Bonaventure to bleed from the arm—which it immediately did.

Rumbald, Day 3

October 21  St. Rumbald  Patron of fisherman

Rumbald was born in England, of pagan royalty and lived for a mere three days.  He started his brief life by preaching a sermon to his parents, then addressed the public at large, expounding on the Holy Trinity and virtuous living, freely quoting the Scriptures.  The prodigy asked for Baptism and Holy Communion, ceaselessly repeating his mantra of  “I am a Christian.” On the third day, he announced his imminent death and dictated his wish to be buried in three consecutive sites.  The infant’s holy remains finally rested at Buckingham, and as his cult grew churches, statues, and streets there were dedicated to him.

October 12  The Feast of St. Edwin    Patron of homeless, hoboes, kings

Edwin married a Christian, promising to consider conversion.  However, being prone to melancholia, he resisted the Faith; he would sit for weeks on end trying to decide whether or not to embrace Christianity, despite the efforts of his wife and St. Paulinus.  After an assassination attempt Edwin, as they say, got religion.  He assembled his nobels and, declaring the gods ineffectual, started destroying pagan temples, and was baptized in 627.  Edwin built churches and made highway improvements, including putting brass cups and water fountains on the roads for thirsty travelers.  It was said that during this reign a woman and her newborn child could walk from sea to sea without being molested.  Edwin was slain in the Battle of Hatfield Chase, defending (and losing) his kingdom to a pagan Welsh king.

Oct. 11 St. Gomer Patron of unhappy husbands; invoked against hernia.

Gomer or Gummarus, a knight of King Pepin’s court, was miserably married to a shrew named Guinimaria.  When Gomer was away on business his wife was unpleasant to his retainers and employees. Once, for instance, she denied liquid refreshment to the reapers, obliging her husband to create a miraculous well to slake their thirst.  During Gomer’s yearly festival at Lierre, Belgium, he works wonders for hernia sufferers.

 

October 10   St. Denis  Patron of the Possessed, Paris; Invoked against frenzy

Denis was the first bishop of Paris, one of the original seven missionaries sent from Rome to minister to the pagan Gauls, in the year 250.  He might have been a Greek philosopher named Dionysius, converted and baptized by St. Paul himself. And then again, maybe not.  Our Saint was decapitated in a somewhat unsavory district of the city, thereafter known as Montmartre—the hill of the martyr.  He flummoxed his persecutors by picking up his head and carrying it six miles to the present site of the great cathedral that bears his name.  “The first step,” said the Saint’s head, “was the difficult one.”

October 8 St. Pelagia  Patron of Actresses

This Pelagia was, in fact, a performer—a glamorous singer-dancer-stripper in decadent old Antioch.  Her stage name was Pearl. Bishop Nonnus of Edessa chanced (we know not how) to catch her act, and in a sermon the next day proclaimed “This girl is a lesson to us bishops!  She takes more trouble over her beauty and her dancing than we do about our souls and flocks.” Pelagia chanced (again, we know not how) to hear this sermon.  She confessed her sins to the bishop, was baptized by him, gave him all her money, and departed for Jerusalem.  There, in male-hermit drag, she lived until death as “Pelagius, the beardless monk.”   This story we have on the authority of St. John Chrysostom, who also tells of another St. Pelagia of Antioch, an equally attractive but chaster young woman who threw herself off a roof to avoid the loss of her virtue.  A third Saint Pelagia was a Christian maiden of Tarsus who spurned the emperor’s son, inspiring him to suicide.  The emperor had no luck with her either, and ordered her roasted to death in a brazen bull.

October 6  St. Bruno    Patron of Ruthenia; invoked against demonic possession

The founder of the Carthusians, Bruno became a scholar and teacher at Rheims, where he ran afoul of the scandalously corrupt and worldly archbishop Manasses.  When a dead man whose funeral Our Saint was conducting sat up and spoke emotionally about God’s strict judgment, Bruno resolved to become an old-fashioned desert-style hermit and, with six companions, set out for the mountain wilderness near Grenoble.  There they were welcomed by St. Hugh, the local bishop, who had recently received a vision of seven stars—clearly prophesying their arrival.  Bishop Hugh heard that an order of beef had been delivered to Bruno and his holy hermits during Lent and arrived to find the men in their dining hall, sitting in a trance before the offending carnal joint.  Hugh made the Sign of the Cross over it, transformed it into a turtle, and awakened the monks, who ate sinlessly.