Viewing all items in Resource Category: Holy Days

– the persuasive sister Scholastica (d.c. 543) should be the patron saint of any woman who can bend her brother to do her will – no matter how ‘powerful’ that brother might seem to other people. For Scholastica’s brother was no less than the great monk Benedict, who founded the famous Benedictine order and lived...

Friend of St Jerome       Eusebius is the saint for you if you believe in the Bible, and also in providing hospitality. He was born of a good family in Cremona, Italy, in the fourth century, and felt called to become a monk. As Eusebius was ascetic by nature, he sought out St Jerome in Rome,...

– the poetic shepherd Caedmon (d 680) should be the patron saint of all farmers who enjoy humming to themselves as they do the lambing this Spring. For Caedmon of Whitby was a bit like David in the Bible; he grew up as a simple herdsman out on the hills who enjoyed composing songs and...

Joyful martyrs of Africa This story could come straight out of modern Africa. Perpetua was a young married woman of 22 who had recently become a Christian. But the authorities had forbidden any new conversions, and soon she and some other catechumens were arrested and sentenced to death. This was not under Islamic State, nor...

Legend tells us that it was St Modomnoc who first brought bees to Ireland, in the early 540s AD. Although it’s more likely that the bees had drifted over from Britain after the last Ice Age all by themselves, certainly Modomnoc did his bit to help them. Modomnoc was a 6th century abbot, probably one...

Bringing love with cigarettes and the Bible Here’s a ‘saint’ that the Church of England remembers from the 1st World War – the Revd Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy MC, or ‘Woodbine Willie’, as everyone knew this popular, much-loved army chaplain on the Western Front. Studdert Kennedy (27th June 1883 – 8th March 1929) had been born...

– a poem St Valentine’s Day, many believe, was named after one or more Christian martyrs and was established by Pope Gelasius 1 in 496 AD. Valentine of Rome was martyred about 269, and this day usually ‘belongs’ to him. The first recorded association of Valentine Day with romantic love (1382) is from Geoffrey Chaucer....

Apostle to East Anglia East Anglia is blessed with a rich Christian heritage. Just two examples: at more than 650, Norfolk has the greatest concentration of ancient churches in the world, and at 500, Suffolk has the second greatest density of medieval churches. And that is not to mention all the churches in Cambridgeshire, Essex, Bedfordshire and...

– a legend The Roman Emperor Claudius II needed soldiers. He suspected that marriage made men want to stay at home with their wives, instead of fighting wars, so he outlawed marriage. A kind-hearted young priest named Valentine felt sorry for all the couples who wanted to marry, but who couldn’t. So secretly he married...

There are two confusing things about this day of romance and anonymous love-cards strewn with lace, cupids and ribbon: firstly, there seems to have been two different Valentines in the 4th century – one a priest martyred on the Flaminian Way, under the emperor Claudius, the other a bishop of Terni martyred at Rome. And...

Cyril and Methodius are saints for anyone with good secular qualifications, who now suspects that God may be calling them to use those skills in His service. Cyril and Methodius were brothers, born into a wealthy family in Thessalonica, in 826 and 815 respectively. Their upbringing destined them for lives of respect and influence. Methodius,...

Beloved apostle to Ireland St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. If you’ve ever been in New York on St Patrick’s Day, you’d think he was the patron saint of New York as well… the flamboyant parade is full of American/Irish razzmatazz. It’s all a far cry from the hard life of this 5th...