A heavenly hotline for almost every problem

By John Cowan

In the days long before telephone hotlines and call centres, ordinary people had to cope with a massive selection of patron saints that they could ask to act on their behalf as heavenly mediators.

In fact, the Council of Trent (1545-63) acknowledged that it was a good and useful thing to call upon these saints because of the benefits everyday folk could obtain from God through their specific patron saint’s mediation.

Public veneration of saints is known to have existed since the 2nd century. It developed in local communities and was an outcome of the belief that the martyrs who shed their blood for Christ were certainly in heaven. Because of this, they were able to exercise intercessory prayer on behalf of those who called upon them.

These saints were honoured with a special feast day every year. Over time, universal feast days filled up about two-thirds of the Church’s universal liturgical calendar, even though some of these saints had become little more than just a name.

In 1969 Pope Paul VI reduced the number of saints to be venerated on their feast days to 58 (not including the Apostles, the Virgin Mary or St Joseph). These 58 saints were considered to be of worldwide, or universal, significance.

Other saints could still be honoured locally, but their feasts would be not be applied worldwide.

Many saints were deleted from the universal calendar, or suppressed, because they were considered to be legends and there was little evidence that they had even existed. One of these was the popular St Christopher, patron of travellers, whose cult (the term the Church uses for the devotion to saints and other pieties) could nonetheless continue in local churches.

There are still many people around the world today who have a St Christopher medallion attached either to their car’s key ring or dashboard. These medallions are not just there as some form of personal decoration. The owners hold the strong belief that their safety while travelling will be cared for via the intercession of the 3rd century saint whose name means “Christ-bearer”.

Legend has it that one day a little boy asked the brawny Christopher to carry him over to the other side of a river. A hermit had assigned Christopher the job of assisting travellers across the river. This time, though, Big Christopher found his small passenger so heavy that he was bowed down by his weight.

Then the little boy told Big Christopher who he was — Jesus Christ himself, who told him: “You have just carried the weight of the whole world and him that created and made all the world upon your shoulders.”

Jesus then told Christopher to plant his staff in the ground as next day it would bear flowers and dates as a sign of the truth of the message he had heard. From that day on Christopher is said to have preached Christianity, right up to the time he was beheaded.

Travellers began to carry St Christopher medallions because it has been believed that whoever sees an image of Christopher would not die on that day.

Taxi drivers have their own beneficial hotline number to heaven as well: St Fiacre.

South African motorists who have made the acquaintance of the minibus taxi will be interested to know that St Fiacre is also the patron saint of haemorrhoid sufferers.

St Fiacre was one of many Irishmen who sought their “separation for Christ”. In his bid to become a hermit, he journeyed to Meaux in France where the bishop gave him land for his hermitage, located a few kilometres away in a place called Breuil. He settled there as a hermit until he died in 670.

St Fiacre’s cult flourished in France. Medieval England also acknowledged him, but in his native Ireland, he was not listed as a saint until well into the 12th century.

St Fiacre’s relics were moved from Breuil to Meaux where they rest to this day. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Meaux became the centre of devotion to St Fiacre. Among his devotees were Anne of Austria and the future saint, Vincent de Paul.

So how did this holy recluse acquire the portfolio of taxi drivers, denizens of dense traffic?

Quite by chance, as it happens. In Paris, horse-drawn hackney carriages for hire used to stand outside the hotel Saint-Fiacre. As a result, the carriage came to be known as fiacre, a name that still applies to French taxis today.

St Fiacre is also a patron saint of gardeners.

Many saints have acquired their patronages by such arbitrary means. Most patronages were assigned because of their spiritual and religious significance. Some saints are believed to be the bearers of special powers. But which saint should you call when you have a request for a specific intercessory prayer?

For thousands of children worldwide there is one saint on whom they call, though not necessarily in the form of an intercessory prayer request: St Nicholas of Myra (or Bari, if you prefer).

In many countries children who have been good awake on St Nicholas’ feast day, December 6, to find gifts left for them by the saint. In the Netherlands, the exchange of Christmas gifts even takes place on that day, not during the feast of the Nativity almost three weeks later.

And it was a corruption of the Dutch name for St Nicholas, Sinter Klaas, that gave rise to the moniker Santa Claus.

We might not believe in Father Christmas, but St Nicholas was a real person. Living in the 4th century, he was the bishop of Myra in present-day Turkey. His reputation as a bringer of gifts is based on a story according to which he anonymously left a dowry for three sisters whom their desperate, impoverished father was about to sell into prostitution.

Not much is known about his life, but stories tell of his generosity and miraculous powers.

One can almost imagine a celestial call centre operator answering the phone; but surely not an automated voice instructing us: “If you are a florist, press 7 for St Dorothy”.

The Heavenly Hotline Call Centre would connect an advertiser with St Bernardino of Siena, a bricklayer with St Stephen the Martyr, a cook with St Martha (hence the title of the lovely German film about a female chef, Bella Martha), an engineer with St Ferdinand, a grocer with St Michael the Archangel, a ladies’ hairdresser with St Mary Magdalen and a men’s hairdresser with St Martin de Porres (unisex hairdressers presumably have their pick of any of these), a librarian with St Jerome, a teacher with St John de la Salle, schoolboys with St John Bosco and schoolgirls with St Ursula or St Catherine.

A journalist or author would call on St Francis de Sales to fix a writer’s block, and an astronaut would seek the intercession of the levitating Franciscan St Joseph Cupertino, as would airline pilots and their passengers (St Bona of Pisa takes care of the cabin staff).

Even dogs have patron saints. A dog with a wet nose — or its owner — can call on St Hubert; a mad dog will find a willing ear in St Sithney.

Politicians can call St Thomas More, and should consult him liberally on ethics, or they might need the next set of patrons.

Prisoners need protection more than most of us, so they have three patrons to call on: Ss Dismas, John and Roch.

If you have a toothache, call your dentist, and while waiting for your appointment, call one of Ss Apollonia, Osmund or Medard. In case of a sore throat, call St Blaise. And if your rheumatism is torturing you, St James the Great is ready to intercede. St Peregrine is the patron saint of cancer sufferers

Unhappily married women have two patron saints to talk to — Ss Rita of Cascia or Wilgefortis — but unhappy husbands apparently have none.

And when your problem seems totally hopeless (possibly because your situation’s particular patron saint didn’t deliver), get on the hotline with St Jude.

If you have no idea whom to call on the heavenly hotline (and have no reference work or Internet access), then kneel down and seek the aid of St Antony of Padua, who apparently will find the name of the one you seek.

• Written with Günther Simmermacher