medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (1. September) is the feast day of:
Verena (3rd cent.) A rather odd legend tells that Verena was an
Egyptian, a relative of St. Victor (one of the martyrs of the Theban
Legion). She came to where the legion had been killed off (modern
Switzerland) to look for her kinsman's relics, and settled at
Solothurn where she cared for the poor and then became a recluse in a
cave near Zurich.
Fiacre (d. c. 670) The patron saint of taxi drivers, thanks to the
fact that the Hotel St-Fiacre in Paris rented out cabs. Fiacre was
an Irish hermit who moved to France. He built a hospice for
travelers and became famous for his charity and spiritual counsel.
Sebbe (d. c. 694) Sebbe was an East Saxon king (he became co-ruler
with Sighere in 664). When Sighere returned to his ancestral
religion, Sebbe remained Christian and ended up spending the 30 years
of his rule winning people back to his religion. S. eventually
abdicated, distributed his wealth to the poor, and became a monk in
London.
Giles (Aegidius) (d. c. 712) Giles is blessed with a very rich body
of legends. He is supposed to have been an Athenian who worked a
miracle and was then so shocked at the adulation he got that he moved
to Marseille. After time with St. Caesarius at Arles (the chronology
is all wrong, by the way) he became a hermit at the mouth of the
Rhone, where he was fed by milk from a doe who took refuge with him
from a Gothic king out hunting (with the unlikely name Flavius; the
king, not the doe). "Flavius" later built Giles a monastery and he
got so famous that he attracted the attention of Charlemagne (!!)
The historic kernel seems to be that G. was a hermit. Period. He is
one of the 14 Holy Helpers, and his shrine was a major goal of
medieval pilgrimage.
Beatrice de Silva Meneses (d. 1490) Beatrice was a Portuguese
noblewoman, sister of St. Amadeus. She was a lady-in-waiting to the
queen of Castile but gave up court life to become a Cistercian nun.
In 1484 she founded the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception
(Conceptionists). B. was canonized in 1976.
A modern saint: Michael Ghebre (blessed) (d. 1855) MG was an
Ethiopian who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1844 and joined the
Vincentian order. Unfortunately, this is a period of Ethiopian
history when European encroachments on the native church were not
appreciated. MG was arrested during a persecution and died of
ill-treatment in prison. He was beatified in 1926.
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