Saints have always been part of my life. Whatever challenges faced my family in my formative years, there was a specialist saint to take up the cudgels on our behalf. And I cannot ever remember a situation where there was not a positive outcome.
In later years, when I started my own business, I elected to avoid inviting human beings to join my board of directors but chose a group of wise and influential saints who have run things more than admirably, I must say. I haven’t really had to worry about big decisions, I just left that to my board and got on with the legwork. As a result, I have built of a fairly significant library of books on the lives and times of saints.
What I have found fascinating is that over the past two millennia, the instruction manual of how to become a saint has changed dramatically. The past couple of centuries have seen the criteria for canonisation tighten up no end. Modern saints have really had to work hard for it. Take Mother Teresa as a prime example of having to put in a lifetime of hardship, toil, faith and above all service to one’s fellow person.
St Anthony of Padua, as painted by Greco
Becoming a saint today is not easy. Back in the olden days, it was a lot easier. Take, for example, St Cædwalla of Wessex, who was born of English royalty in the 7th century and invaded the Isle of Wight and Kent and made himself king. He killed hordes of local residents and replaced them with citizens of his native Sussex.
In short, Cædwalla was a ruthless, murdering so and so who, if he were alive today, would probably run business conglomerates founded on slave labour and drive around in a big flashy car and run over puppies and kittens just for pleasure. (He is, by the way, the patron saint of murderers.)
Later in life, on one of his rampages, he was wounded and decided it was time to switch careers from being Number One Nasty to sainthood. He gave a quarter of the Isle of Wight to the Church and put St Wilfred in charge. Then he dashed off to Rome and was baptised a Catholic by Pope Sergius. Ten days later Cædwalla died and shortly after was canonised. To this day his remains lie buried in a crypt beneath St Peter’s basilica in Rome.
There are many more examples of Middle Ages saints who were some really nasty pieces of work but managed to change their tune later in life, and were rewarded with sainthood.
I am not raising these examples out of cynicism or any suggestion that some people conned their way into the College of Saints, but simply to show how different things are today in terms of passing that greatest examination of all. On the contrary, I believe that those examples show the power of forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption. God is able to see the good in everyone, even if we can’t.
Something else I have found fascinating is that the most popular saints’ name is John. There are 60 of them.
"The Dumb Ox"
About 40 honorific titles have been bestowed on some heavy hitters in the sainthood. Wonderful titles such as “Beloved Disciple” granted to St John the Evangelist; “Doctor Expertus” (St Albert the Great); “Beloved Physician (St Luke the Evangelist); “Father of Scholasticism” (St Anselm); “Oracle of the Church” (St Bernard of Clairvaux); and “Hammer of the Arians” (St Hilary of Poitiers). St Thomas Aquinas had several honorific titles: “Angel of the Schools”, “Father of Moral Philosophy”, and for some reason that I can never remember, he also ended up with the title “Dumb Ox”. Shame!
There are saints for every calling and occupation. From accountants and advertisers to archers, architects, editors, linguists, marble workers and medical record librarians. Patron saints of florists, soldiers, tax collectors, telecommunications and television workers, travel hostesses, wine merchants and yachtsmen. Notaries, pawnbrokers, public relations executives and queens. Politicians, however, had no patron saint until 2000, when Pope John Paul II “appointed” St Thomas More.
And so to St Christopher. And in spite of questions having been raised with regard to his status, I have always carried a medal with his image when I have travelled by car, train, plane and boat. I find now that I have been wrong. St Christopher, according to my various authoritative sources, is the patron saint of motorists, a job he shares with St Frances of Rome. Good gender equality there. The patron saint of travellers, however, is St Anthony of Padua.
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