Technically, Columbia of Rieti is not a saint. Technically she gets the title “Blessed,” which is one rung below sainthood on the Catholic Ladder of Holiness. The process of beatification is simultaneously quite thorough and totally haphazard, as best as I can tell, and anyway her technically non-beatified status doesn’t make her any less interesting. [...]
Archive for the ‘Obscure Saint Blogging’ Category
Blessed Columba of Rieti
Posted in Obscure Saint Blogging, Religion, tagged Catholicism, maidens, saints, holy anorexia, anorexia mirabilis, renaissance saints on December 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
St. Florian
Posted in Obscure Saint Blogging, tagged Catholicism, antiquity, saints, Roman Empire, Diocletian on September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This post is about penance. Well, sort of, though that would imply that this is somehow punishment rather than something awesome. Last week at the local pub quiz, there was FINALLY a question about a saint–who is the patron saint of firefighters and chimney sweeps? Well, dear reader, I had absolutely no idea. Naturally this [...]
St. Irene of Athens
Posted in Obscure Saint Blogging, Religion, Uncategorized, tagged antiquity, byzantine empire, debunked saints, Eastern Orthodoxy, saints, women emperors on July 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I owe this episode of Obscure Saint Blogging to Twelve Byzantine Rulers, a podcast I’ve been listening to on my runs lately and enjoying the crap out of. As a half-assed classicist, my understanding of Roman history goes something like: lots of detail, names and dates up through about 69 CE; something about Trajan and [...]
St. Graoust
Posted in Obscure Saint Blogging, Religion on June 17, 2009 | 2 Comments »
It turns out that I take obscure saint requests. It hadn’t occurred to me until someone asked, and I thought, sure! I’ll just google it and turn something up and it’s fantastic for when I can’t decide on a saint myself. Famous last words, everybody. Today we’re plunging into the non-story of one Saint Graoust, [...]
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Posted in Obscure Saint Blogging, Religion, tagged aztecs, latin american saints, mexico, nahuatl, our lady of guadalupe, virgin mary on December 12, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The Virgin, obviously, is neither obscure nor technically a saint, but she’s pretty much my favorite Catholic thing ever. Partly because she’s so pretty, partly because she’s all over everything in Los Angeles, but mostly because her saint day–today–is my birthday. I didn’t even know that until I moved to L.A. and got carded buying [...]
St. Hubert
Posted in Obscure Saint Blogging, Religion, tagged european saints, hunting, medieval saints, visions on October 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Hubert–who I keep wanting to called Humbert Humbert–was born in Aquitaine around 656 CE. His grandfather had been the king of Toulouse (this was back when basically every holler and hamlet had a king), and his father was duke of Aquitaine. We don’t know who his mother was because women didn’t matter. As a “youth” [...]
St. Adjutor
Posted in Obscure Saint Blogging, Religion, tagged French saints, infidels, the crusades on August 15, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Today in the anti-infidel edition of Weekend Obscure Saint Blogging, we’ve got a crusading saint. The Crusades are one of those things I’m always meaning to learn more about–partly, because when I heard about them for the first time (as a kid, from the Disney version of Robin Hood) I thought they sounded great. Then [...]
St. Rita of Cascia
Posted in Obscure Saint Blogging, Religion, tagged Augustinians, Italian saints, nuns, stigmata on August 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
St. Rita–possibly short for Margherita, better known as a delicious type of pizza–was born to somewhat elderly parents in Cascia, Italy, near Umbria. Antonio and Amata Lotti, her parents, were quite devout and known as “peacemakers of Jesus,” and that’s why they managed to have a kid at an advanced age. There’s a tale about [...]
St. Alexis of Rome
Posted in Obscure Saint Blogging, Religion, tagged ascetic saints, douchebags in the name of God, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Roman saints on August 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Here’s a fun author factoid: my parents almost named me Alexis, but for the character of the same name in Dynasty, which was super popular around the time I was born. (Video hint: it gets great around 1:50. Alexis Carrington Colby, in case you are my age or younger, is in the white pantsuit-thing.) I [...]
St. Apollonia
Posted in Obscure Saint Blogging, Religion, tagged Egyptian saints, maidens, martyrs, persecution, Roman Empire, saints, virgins on July 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Way before a dude named Prince was making Purple Rain, there was a martyr in Alexandria, Egypt, named Apollonia. Nothing, apparently, is known of her life, besides the fact that she was a Christian virgin who lived in Alexandria. Some sources say she was an older lady, but other sources say that’s a mistranslation, and [...]
