It seems sainthood is the question of the hour for me – so I’m running with it. \u00a0There we were, just a pair of innocents driving down the street, when we saw a license plate that said “StBndct.” \u00a0Sometimes you really have to try to parse a vanity plate. \u00a0In this case, one can tell right away that it’s an invocation to St. Benedict. \u00a0But why? \u00a0 What’s he the patron Saint of, anyway, and why should he in particular be looking out for the welfare of this Toyota?<\/p>\n
A little research turned up the fact that Good Old St. Ben is actually the Patron Saint of a lot of stuff: \u00a0Agricultural workers,\u00a0civil engineers, coppersmiths,\u00a0dying people,\u00a0Europe,\u00a0farmers, fever,\u00a0gall stones, heraldry, inflammatory diseases,\u00a0Italian architects, kidney disease, monks, nettle rash, servants who have broken their master’s belongings,\u00a0spelunkers, and\u00a0temptations.<\/p>\n
Whoa. \u00a0I mean, that’s a lot of shit to be the Patron Saint of. \u00a0 Patron Saint of temptations? \u00a0Pro or con? \u00a0Did Otis Williams know this? \u00a0The Patron Saint of dying people? \u00a0Isn’t that pretty much everyone, eventually? \u00a0That’s a pretty big gig. \u00a0Plus having to look after all of Europe. \u00a0And why civil<\/span> engineers and Italian<\/span> architects in particular?<\/p>\n And you know, it’s got to be a bit of a bummer to have to be the Patron Saint of kidney and\u00a0inflammatory diseases, plus the gall stones. \u00a0Who decides this? \u00a0And I still don’t know why the Toyota was claiming him – a European model car would have made more sense. \u00a0Maybe the driver was a coppersmith, or a particularly clumsy butler.<\/p>\n Some further discussion lead to the\u00a0topic of the patronage of saints in general. \u00a0It turns out, and some of you may know this, but there are more than 800 saints of something or other. \u00a0I knew that St.\u00a0Christopher was the patron saint of travelers, but Bona of Pisa has them also, covering not just travelers in general but flight attendants in particular. \u00a0There doesn’t seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason: \u00a0Augustine of Hippo\u00a0covers printers and brewers,\u00a0Bernard of Clairvaux looks after bee keepers and overpaid Madison Avenue advertising executives. \u00a0St.\u00a0Christopher also covers\u00a0bookbinders, gardeners, and pilots. \u00a0I knew\u00a0St. Jude was for lost causes, but it turns out that\u00a0undertakers have their own saint (Dismas), as do coffee house owners (Drogo),\u00a0locksmiths (Dunstan), and lawyers and\u00a0lumberjacks (Genesius and\u00a0Gummarus, respectively).<\/p>\n Nurses and shepherds seem to have a lot of patron saints. \u00a0St. Malo covers\u00a0pig-keepers, while St.\u00a0Roch drew surgeons and gravediggers – two sides of one coin, I suppose. \u00a0St.\u00a0Veronica was famous for her veil, which became the Shroud of Turin; seems kinda mean to make her the patron saint of laundry workers, but there you go.<\/p>\n I have to wonder, is there a beautific game of cards going on somewhere, where the saints swap these patronages around when someone is newly canonized? \u00a0Poor St.\u00a0Agatha got stuck being patron saint of breast cancer, while St. Christina the Astonishing is the saint against insanity and mental disorders. \u00a0I suppose she was astonished to get picked for that. \u00a0And it really seems mean-spirited that the\u00a0patron of the blind and the lame is\u00a0Saint Abel. \u00a0Seems\u00a0pretty ableist to me.<\/p>\n I can see them sitting around a heavenly table playing cards, halos slung over their chairs, bitching about their lot.<\/p>\n St. Damien of Molokai:<\/strong> \u00a0“Oh man,\u00a0 leprosy? \u00a0Really? \u00a0That’s just gross.” In light of the fact that it seems like you can self-select your own patron saint and the poor sod of a saint just has to live with it, I think bloggers need their own. \u00a0I know Saint\u00a0Isidore is the patron for the Internet in general, but I’m declaring St.\u00a0Arnold of Soissons to be the\u00a0Patron Saint of Bloggers. \u00a0He was probably bored, just covering beer and those who pick hops – he should have plenty of time to watch after the bloggers!<\/p>\n Besides, now I can have a beer and pretend I’m working.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It seems sainthood is the question of the hour for me – so I’m running with it. \u00a0There we were, just a pair of innocents driving down the street, when we saw a license plate that said “StBndct.” \u00a0Sometimes you really have to try to parse a vanity plate. \u00a0In this case, one can tell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,53],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4081"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4086,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081\/revisions\/4086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSt. Edmund the Martyr of East Anglia:<\/strong> \u00a0“Just one disease? \u00a0Quit your bitching, I drew pandemics. \u00a0Besides, hardly anyone even gets leprosy any more.”
\nSt. Fiacre:<\/strong> \u00a0“I’ll trade you there, Ed. \u00a0I’d rather have a nice quick pandemic than my<\/span> divine plate full of venereal diseases and hemorrhoids! \u00a0Hey, Vitus, wake up! \u00a0What’d you get?”
\nSt. Vitus:<\/strong> \u00a0“Heh, sorry, yeah, that sucks. \u00a0I got oversleeping.”
\nSt. Edmund the Martyr of East Anglia:<\/strong> \u00a0“Oversleeping? \u00a0We need a damn saint for oversleeping? \u00a0Pansy. \u00a0Gummy, what the hell are you singing?”
\nSt. Gummarus:<\/strong> \u00a0“Oh, I’ve got lumberjacks and I’m OK….”
\nSt. Fiacre: <\/strong>“Shut it, you. \u00a0Someone shuffle the cards again, huh? \u00a0Come on guys, I hate hemorrhoids.”<\/p>\n