St. Piran of Cornwall

Source: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=773

We are back to discussing the Saints. It is March 5 and one of the patron saints of the day is St. Piran. Let us dive into his life and see what we can learn from it.

We do not know when Piran was born, but he lived in the fifth century. He was an abbot, probably an Irishman or possibly Welsh. We do not know much about his life, and most of it is highly legendary. Still, I will share those legends as follows.

The first legend is that the Irish tied a millstone around him and rolled him off a cliff into the sea (presumably mistaking him for the fellow in Mark 9:42). However, he floated on the stone to land upon the sandy beach of Perranzabuloe in Cornwall. When he landed there, he established himself as a hermit, and it was said he was given the gift of miracles.

His first disciples are said to have been a badger, a fox, and a bear. This rather reminded me of Eden as there all of God’s creation was at peace with itself—as is written in Isaiah 11:6, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” (Revised Standard Version)

Aside from the badger, fox, and bear, he was joined by several Christian converts. There, they founded the Abbey of Lanpiran.

St. Piran is said to have rediscovered tin-smelting when his hearthstone, apparently a slab of tin-bearing ore, had tin smelt out of it and rise to the form of a white cross, which became the emblem of the Cornish tinners and the Cornish national flag. For this reason, he became the patron saint of tin miners.

Piran died around the year A.D. 480 and was buried in Perranzabuloe.

St. Piran’s Day, this day, is a popular Cornish holiday and the week preceding it is called  Perrantide. The largest event on that day to honor St. Piran is the march across the dunes to St. Piran’s cross which hundreds of people attend, carrying the Cornish Flag.

We know little else about the saint, but I think he can remind us to trust in God and He will take care of us, and, just as He saved St. Piran from drowning that he might evangelize others, even receiving a badger, a fox, and a bear as his first followers, so He has a plan for us, to be accomplished in any number of wonderful ways.

St. Piran
Pray for us!

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St. Valentine

It is that time of the year again! Welcome to the day when people all over the world are committing heinous actions of licentiousness and those who are not are in romantic relationships are made to be depressed and eating excessive amounts of comfort food in the form of heart-shaped chocolate, all in honor of St. Valentine, a martyr for our Lord!

What our culture has made of St. Valentine’s Day for singles…

I am sorry, does what I just said sound absolutely ridiculous? Let us slow down. 

Our modern culture has forgotten it, even when not practicing heinous sins, but Valentine’s Day is actually in celebration of a real saint and February 14 is his feast day. Now what I wish to do here is look into the life of this saint and separate the man from the… “holiday“ (heavy quotes being placed on holiday). So let us jump right into another tale of a saint.

An iconic scene from Prince Caspian—but no St. Valentine…

Little is known about him for sure, but he lived in the Third Century A.D. and may have been a wealthy Roman Christian. One of the most common legends is that St. Valentine was placed on house arrest by Judge Asterius for being a Christian. At this point, Valentine was already the former bishop of Terni, Narnia, and Amelia (yes, Narnia is a real place apparently, if you were wondering, although why St. Valentine is not the patron saint of warrior mice I will never know).

Anyway, Valentine pledged his faith in Jesus Christ before the judge. In turn, Asterius decided to test him and presented his own blind daughter. He said that if Valentine could cure her, he would do anything for him, which makes sense because it was his daughter. 

Asterius actually did not prove to be an evil bad guy type and held to his word. At Valentine’s request, he destroyed all his idols, fasted for three days, and became baptized—the usual Roman-pagan-becoming-a-Christian thing. His family and his forty-four-member household were also baptized (and I must say, I know that back then servants were also considered part of a household, but that still sounds like a stuffed house; even allowing that he had at least sixteen children—which is very generous—not to mention one wife, that leaves room for twenty-six servants; that household sounds needlessly stuffy for my tastes).

However, Valentine was arrested again for continuing to convert people to Christianity and for marrying Christian couples in secret. This is more or less the only known thing he did that has anything to do with the allegedly romantic things people do on his day. Valentine, however, was sent to Rome under the emperor Claudius Gothicus, and imprisoned. However, apparently Claudius became something of a friend of Claudius until he tried to convert him (which, I must say, is so relatable), so Claudius got enraged and, when Valentine refused to renounce his faith, Claudius sentenced him to clubbing and beheading. 

On the day of his execution, it is said he wrote a note to Judge Asterius’ daughter, who had been blind. It was supposedly signed “Your Valentine”. He was martyred outside the Flaminian Gate and went to our Lord on February 14, 269.

Now it must be remembered that these are all from various legends that may be conflated together. We know he was at least one real man as his tomb was found, but it may be that these legends if they happened at all, were from three separate saints, a Roman priest, the bishop of Interamna or modern Terni, Italy, and a saint who suffered on the same day with several companions in Africa.

But whatever the case, we honor him because he was a holy man with absolutely nothing to do with whatever people are doing nowadays. That said, it seems Valentine made a powerful impression on everyone he met, even his persecutors, who respected him. St. Valentine is the patron saint of happy marriages (along with young people, epilepsy, and beekeepers—I have no idea), but let us also remember the nonromantic but ever generous charity he gave to everyone he met.

St. Valentine: Pray for us!
I am the Chivalric Apologist

St. Donán

St. Donán

Feastday: April 17

St. Donán is the patron saint of the day. He is an interesting saint, partly because he is actually among the few missionaries to the Celts who were martyred. Prior to the Viking and Danish raids, there was little violent opposition to Christendom. Donán, however, was an exception.

Unfortunately, we know little of his life, but it is believed he lived roughly around the time of the sixth century. He was likely Irish, and he moved to Galloway in early adulthood.

After this, little is known for certain. However, there is one incident recorded as happening during these missionary years. He crossed to lona and met St. Columba. Supposedly, he asked the saint to act as his ‘anamchara’ or ‘soul-friend’. This title took the place of the Roman Church’s ‘confessor’. Columba, however, refused, saying, ‘I shall not be a soul-friend to a company of red-martyrdom.’ Dr. A. B. Scott, who disliked Columba, saw it as a refusal to have any friendly intercourse with any Pict. But we can assume something different from a saint. Perhaps Columba was unwilling to accept the additional responsibility which the duty entailed.

Eventually, Donan formed his community on a small island known as Eigg, with monastic buildings facing Arisaig. It was then when there was a sudden unprecedented attack. Concerning this subject, some scholars have made a fair deal of an obscure statement in the martyrologies that the monks’ keeping sheep on the island had angered a local woman of importance. Apparently, entitled neighbors complaining about animals is something that is known in any age. I think we have all had neighbors who complain too much after all.

Scott draws the unwarranted conclusion that when the local folk refused to take action about the sheep she deliberately bribed a group of pirates to make the attack. I cannot quite envision neighbor nowadays being so annoyed about sheep that she would send pirates to kill anyone, but I suppose one cannot know until it happens.

This cannot, of course, be proven one way or the other. The reason for the brutality must remain conjectural. It is, however, unlikely that pirates would bother to raid an obscure, penniless, and inoffensive group of monks. It is more likely to have been a very early group of ‘Black Gentiles’ from Jutland or Denmark.

But returning to Donán, details of the raid differ. Nevertheless, it is said that Donán was celebrating Mass when the intruders broke in. He begged for respite till mass was completed, and they agreed. He led the monks across to the refectory ‘that the place where God had been worshipped in spiritual joy might not be polluted with their blood’. The Martyrology of Donegal states that ‘he was beheaded and 52 of the monks with him’ while that of Oengus suggests that the building was set on fire and they all perished in the flames. Donán and the fifty-one other monks went to heaven in the year A.D. 618.

Source: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=422

We know little of this particular saint’s life, but, as all martyrs, he can inspire us to have the faith and courage to give our lives for Christ.

St. Donán: Pray for us!

I am the Catholic of Honor

Bl. Anthony Neyrot

Bl. Anthony Neyrot

Feastday: April 10

As many of my readers know, I am currently discussing saints. This time, I will be dealing with Bl. Anthony Neyrot. I had not heard of him before, but he seems to have had a very interesting life.

Bl. Anthony Neyrot was born in Rivoli, in Piedmont, Italy in the year 1425. He entered the Dominicans and, after completing his studies, was ordained and lived for at San Marco in Florence where he studied under St. Antoninus of Florence. But Anthony was unsatisfied and asked for a mission change. He was sent to Sicily, but, still unhappy, he set out for Naples. On this voyage, his ship was captured by Moorish pirates, and along with the other passengers, was taken to North Africa—here we must be glad, whatever is going on in the Middle-East, that this sort of thing does not often happen anymore.

Apparently Muslim caliph of Tunis favored Anthony, since he was treated kindly and not even confined—that is until his arrogance irritated his captors. It seems Anthony could not take being a prisoner humbly and resented it. Just imagine: Well, Anthony, we tried to treat you kindly, but since you’re being the absolute worst about technically being our ‘prisoner’, we’ll just lock you up.

Whatever happened, Anthony soon collapsed after only eating bread and water—which, I grant, does not sound like a very balanced diet. But here is the sad part: when Anthony thought he could take this no more, he denied his faith and bought his freedom.

Anthony lost all faith in Christianity and began to translate the Koran. He was adopted by the king and married a Turkish lady of a high rank. All seemed to be going well for him from a worldly perspective, until he received news of the death of Antoninus. In a dream, Antoninus appeared to him. Whatever conversation they had, it prompted Anthony to readopt the Christian faith, even though he knew this would lead to certain death.

Finding a Dominican priest, Anthony confessed his sins, and on Palm Sunday of 1460, he publicly asked forgiveness from his fellow Catholics, and he was then readmitted to his order. 

He wished for reconversion to be as public as his denial had been, so Anthony waited until the king held a public procession. Having already confessed his sins, Anthony climbed the palace steps where everyone could see him clothed in a Dominican habit. Anthony proclaimed his Faith. The king, of course, immediately ordered that he be stoned to death. Anthony was killed on Holy Thursday in 1460.

Anthony’s body was recovered at great expense by merchants from Genoa and was returned to Rivoli, where his tomb became a place of pilgrimage.

Source: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1458

I think one can pray to Bl. Anthony Neyrot for the strength to remain in and accept his or her state in life, as well as to choose to do the right thing even when the consequences might be difficult.

Bl. Anthony Neyrot

Pray for us!

I am the Catholic of Honor

St. Anthony Neyrot

St. Agape, St. Chiona, and St. Irene

I have gone back to writing about saints at present, so feel free to guess on whom I will be writing next week.

Today, on this April 3, I decided to write on one St. Agape, Chiona, and Irene. I was unable to find any feast day specifically for St. Chiona, but she was the sister of Agape and Irene, whose feasts are both on April 3. It seemed unfair for me to leave her out. I had been looking for lesser-known saints, and the name Agape especially rather stuck out to me due to her name. Agape is Greek for unselfish love.

The sisters, Agape Chionia and Irene, were orphaned at a young age and lived pious lives under the direction of the priest Xeno. They declined a number of offers of marriage. In 303, Emperor Diocletian issued a decree making it a capital offense to possess the Christian scriptures. Rather than doing away with them, the sisters hid their copies of the Scripture.

Eventually, they were arrested for refusing to eat food that was sacrificed to the gods. They were brought before Emperor Diocletian, but, as can be expected, he could not persuade them to renounce the Christian Faith.

Diocletian brought them to Thessalonica, where they were taken to the court of Dulcitius, the governor. Apparently, he advanced them in an indecent manner. As any self-respecting woman would be, these girls were repulsed.

Seeing this, Diocletian was irked that Dulcitius was making no progress in being inappropriate around young girls (being a creepy old man among multiple young girls who are siblings is not the best way to win their hearts in my opinion, but perhaps those times were different), so the Emperor turned the three young women over to Count Sisinus for trial. Sisinus did not even try to get Agape and Chiona to recant but had them burned. Miraculously, neither their clothes nor their bodies were scorched, but they appeared as if they were asleep. Being the faithless pagans that they were, the Romans apparently ignored this rather than supposing something strange and miraculous was afoot.

Irene was the youngest and was not burned, but Sisinus ordered Irene to be taken to a brothel. I had to look up what a brothel was, but apparently, it basically meant that she was sent to a prostitution shop. I wonder if Sisinus thought she was youngest and most impressionable or youngest and therefore the most nubile. The latter would be far more disturbing, but I imagine it is more likely. Lest disturbing prospects fill our minds, let us move on. Fortunately, on the way, the escort was intercepted by two soldiers who told them to abandon her on a mountain. When they returned Sisinus grew angry as he had given no such orders—leading me to question who had. They pursued her and shot her in the throat, at which point she died. This occurred in 304 A.D.

I had not known about these sisters before then, but there are so many saints, especially from the Roman persecution, that they are difficult to keep track. I think we can pray to them for courage in hard places when our faith is challenged, even martyrdom. We can also pray to them when facing an attack on purity, especially those who are young women, perhaps discerning a religious vocation—or, of course, if they run into creepy perverts such as Sisinus.

St. Agape, St. Chiona, and Saint Irene: Pray for us.

I am the Catholic of Honor

Bl. Vasyl Velychkovsky

No one guessed which saint I was going to do today… Now I am depressed…

Continuing my series about saints, I have chosen someone who is not technically canonized yet, but he is a blessed who has a feast day, so he counts close enough. His name is Bl. Vasyl Velychkovsky.

Vasyl was born in Stanislaviv, in then Austria-Hungary on June 1, 1903 (an excellent day and year which I remember vividly). In 1920 he entered the seminary in Lviv and five years later, he was ordained a priest and took religious vows in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, better known as the Redemptorists. In other words, he was a priest-monk type (or so I can put it no plainer). He preached and taught in Volyn. In 1942 he became abbot of the monastery in a city called Ternopil. What happens next is the fault of the Communists. (they may be the ones a person would always blame if he sees the green-skinned Wood-Elves in the 1977 cartoon, The Hobbit, but that can be ignored).

Bl. Vasyl was arrested in 1945 by the NKVD and sent to Kiev during the religious persecution. The official punishment was death, but the Soviets nicely changed it to ten years in hard labor (in other words, a cruel concentration camp) because they were just so nice in that way.

On release in 1955 Vasyl went back to Lviv, and was ordained a bishop in 1963. What the Soviets should have learned from the Romans is that persecution never works to actually quell Christianity and the proper way to do so is to make Christians grow comfortable and lukewarm, but apparently the Soviets were no history scholars. In 1969 Vasyl was imprisoned again for three years for his religious activities. Released in 1972, he was exiled outside the USSR. He then did what anyone does if he does not like the political climate at the time—he moved to Canada. He went to God on account of his injuries from prison in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on June 30, 1973. He was seventy years old (why his feast day is three days too early, I do not know.

Thirty years after his death, Vasyl Velychkovsky’s body was found to be almost incorrupt, except for the fact that his toes had fallen off, which were subsequently divided to be used as holy relics (it is a very Catholic thing to distribute body parts of holy people throughout the world, by the way).

He was beatified in 2001 by Pope St. John Paul II. On July 20, 2014, at the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Zarvanytsia in Ukraine, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych, solemnly proclaimed Vasyl patron of prison ministry for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. A prison minister might as well pray to him—especially, I think, if the minister is trying to share Christ with the inmates. Also, if the reader happens to be a prisoner somewhere under the charge of religious activity (which I sincerely hope is not the case now) or risking it (which is also unfortunate), I think you ought to ask Bl. Vasyl for his intercession.

Bl. Vasyl Velychkovsky

Pray for us

Bl. Vasyl Velychkovsky

St. Florentina of Cartagena

I have been feeling somewhat overwhelmed with school lately (or rather, I had been feeling busy when I wrote this; by the time this is posted, it will be summer). So I decided to do something a little different this week—that is, talk about a saint, specifically a lesser known one. Today, June 20, is the feast of St. Florentina of Cartagena and she is the topic of discussion for this article.

St. Florentina was born in roughly the middle of the sixth century in Cartagena, Spain. She was raised a Christian and her family definitely definitely had no deficit of…sanctity. She had three brothers, St. Leander, St. Isidore, and St. Fulgentius—which means she had a lot of saints. They became Iberian bishops in the time of the Visigothic dominion, so there were a lot of clergy as well in her family and she never got any nieces or nephews (or, according to the gender neutral term, “nephlings”). Unfortunately, I do not have any clergy in my immediate family. My father was one of thirteen and raised Catholic, but only three of them actually kept the Catholic Faith. My mother was raised Protestant. I have two sisters—neither of whom, of course, are eligible to become clergymen, but they do not seem to be discerning a religious vocation at the moment. Well, hopefully they will at least become saints. At the moment, I do not have anyone canonized in the family…

Anyway, returning to St. Florentina, her older brother, St. Leander, actually entered the monastic life before becoming a bishop. He seems to have been a good influence on his younger sister, since he led her to also have interest in the ascetic life. Florentina associated herself with a number of virgins and started a religious community. Their convent is said to have been the convent of S. Maria de Valle near Ecija (Astigis), where Florentina’s brother, St. Fulgentius, was bishop.

The exact date she became a nun is not known, but it must have occurred before 601, since her brother, St. Leander, who died in 600 or 601, wrote an extant work for her dealing with a nun’s rule of life and with contempt for the world (“Regula sive Libellus de institutione virginum et de contemptu mundi ad Florentinam sororem”, P.L. LXXII, 873 sqq.). Leander lays out a rule for how cloistered sisters should live their lives. He strongly advises them to avoid interaction with women living in the world, and with men, especially youths. He advises strict temperance in eating and drinking, gives advice concerning the reading of and meditation on Scripture, enjoins equal love and friendship for all those living together in community, and exhorts his sister earnestly to remain true to her holy state in life. Florentina regulated her life according to her brothers advice.

It might also be noted that St. Isidore wrote a work called De Fide Catholica Contra Judæos which he wrote at his sister’s request and dedicated to her. It is unknown precisely when she died, but it must have been in the early seventh century. She is only venerated as the patroness of the diocese of Plasencia, but I think it also reasonable to call on her if the reader happens to be a young woman, or even a young person in general, who is discerning a religious or monastic vocation. Those currently living the monastic or cloistered lifestyle might as well call on her if they are feeling discouraged or wearied by their life. And in general, one more saint to pray to can never hurt.

Next week, I will probably be doing another saint and see if I can start a series. For those of you who are disappointed by the lack of apologetics in this article, never fear: the Chivalric Apologist will return! In the meanwhile, I want you to guess on whom I will write next. It will be on June 27 and I seem to be able to find seventeen saints whose feasts fall on those days. It will be someone I had not heard of before, since I think the lesser known saints are in more need of articles.

St. Florentina of Cartagena

Pray for us

St. Florentina

St. Catherine of Alexandria: Patron of Apologists

Today on November 25 is the feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria, patron of students, unmarried girls, apologists. I fall into two of those categories so I thought this was important to mention. St. Catherine was born in 287 in Alexandria, Egypt. According to our tradition, she was of noble birth, possibly a princess. As a member of the nobility, she was also educated and was very intelligent. Around the age of fourteen, she saw a vision of our Lady and the child Jesus, and she decided to become a Christian. It was around that time when Maxentius became emperor and started persecuting the Christians. Saints being what they are, Catherine visited the emperor and denounced him for his cruelty. Maxentius thought the best way to stop this, probably because he did not wish to kill the princess of Alexandria, was to send fifty of his best orators and philosophers to debate her (showing that this was a long time ago before secular society basically abandoned caring about reason). Catherine, however, moved by the Holy Spirit, defended the Faith and converted a number of them. It is said that Maxentius’ wife, Valeria Maximilla, also converted on account of Catherine (which if I may say so, probably annoyed the emperor). So the emperor decided, since he could not beat her due to good rhetoric, to torture her and put her to death. Maxentius made a final attempt to persuade Catherine to stop being Christian by proposing marriage to her, which would have made her an empress. After all, since she had converted his old wife to Christianity, he needed a new one. Catherine refused, saying that she was married to our Lord and had dedicated her virginity to him. Maxentius finally ordered her to be executed on a breaking wheel, which is an ancient form of torture where a person’s limbs are threaded among the spokes and their bones are shattered by an executioner with a heavy rod. However, when Catherine touched the wheel, it miraculously shattered. Finally she was beheaded.

I think Catherine really shows our Lord’s words: “When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.” (Mat. 10:19) She is the patron saint of apologists, beating even St. Augustine (who is somehow patron of brewers) and St. Thomas Aquinas (the patron saint of students and universities). I am sure she was intelligent and well-educated, but that is not really what converts people. The only One who actually converts people is the Holy Spirit. I think we ought to all remember that as apologists. We can give perfectly sound arguments, but if we have not charity, we can still lose a soul. We need to pray for the Holy Spirit to guide us. If He is not guiding us, we will convert no one.

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, virgin and martyr, pray for us!

I am the Catholic of Honor