Saturday, December 02, 2017

Patron Saint of 2018: St. Catherine of Bologna

It's the most wonderful time of the year.... Advent! Or, rather, it will begin liturgically in just over an hour, from where I sit.

So I have randomly generated my patron saint of the next liturgical year just now. I look forward to this little ritual every year. I know that every saint reflects the glory of God in a unique way, and I always ask the Lord that I may glean something needed from the one generated to be my patron for the next year. I have always found timely help this way, even though I didn't necessarily understand what my forthcoming needs of the year would be as each Advent began.

This year my saint is St. Catherine of Bologna. She was a Franciscan tertiary who went on to found two convents of Poor Claires, and lived in the 15th century. Interestingly, she died at age 50, which age I currently am. She also wrote a work called The Seven Spiritual Weapons. She was an artist and a poet in addition to being a foundress and an abbess. She is the patroness of artists, of the liberal arts, of the city of Bologna, and against temptations. Her body is incorrupt, and her corpse is seated on a gold throne. Frankly, she doesn't look so great any more. I opted for an artistic rendering rather than a photo of her body to memorialize her on this blog. I rather like the sort of cartoonish effect of her oversized head and tiny body.



St. Catherine, pray for me!

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