I surfed into a neat new blog by "the mom" called "Shoved to Them." She mentions how Saint Bartholomew is patron Saint of tanners, because he was skinned alive before being crucified upside down. See here.I've often thought that one of the coolest jobs in the Catholic church is figuring out who gets to be patron saint of various causes. Yes, yes, I know this often develops over time - I mean St. Anthony getting to be patron saint of "lost things" for instance. I always "took it for granted" through custom in the home that that's who you pestered if you lost your car keys or home work or whatever, and then once I decided to look up just WHY he is "assigned" the job. The whole shebang was started because he lent a book out once and DIDN'T get it back. Go figure. But Tony and I are "tight."
I like to get the impression (one I don't want to correct, so don't spoil it for me if you know how this really works) is that there is a real joker of an ageing monseignor in a musty office in the Vatican who gets to select patron saints for relatively new occupations. My own favorite "assignment of whimsy" is having St. Joseph of Cupertino, who was known to levitate, be the patron Saint of Aviators. How cool is that? In theory he's on the calendar for Sept 18th (my birthday) but when those pinheads "simplified" the calendar - they knocked a lot of cool saints off the calendar from getting their own Mass said regularly. I don't care if he is a "minor" saint. He's MY minor saint.
