St. George

St. George (Romanized: Georgios), a.k.a. George of Lydda, was a Christian martyr. He’s venerated as a saint. He was born in the late 3rd century (circa 270-281 AD) in Cappadocia in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), to Christian parents of noble Greek descent.

According to tradition, he was a soldier in the Roman army. He became a soldier in the Roman army. He became a soldier after his dad passed away. He became a Tribunus (a high-ranking officer). He eventually became a member of the Diocletian at Nicomedia.

But he was later executed, as part of the Diocletianic Persecution. In 303 AD, Diocletian issued an edict allowing the persecution of Christians. George was ordered to renounce his faith & offer sacrifices to the Roman gods. He refused. He also tore up the emperor’s edict.

He was beheaded on April 23, 303 AD. His courage was so admired (in some traditions) that it led to Empress Alxandra of Rome to be martyred also.

He’s 1 of the most venerated saints, heroes, & megalomartyrs in Christianity. He has been especially venerated as a military saint since the Crusades. He’s also prominently venerated by the Druze (& by some Muslim groups) as a martyr of monotheistic faith.

In hagiography, he was immortalized in the legend(s) of St. George & the dragon & as 1 of the most prominent military saints. In a famous tale of George rescuing a princess from a dragon in Silene (Libya) 1st appeared in Georgian texts in the 11th century.

It was popularized in the West by the Lombardic “Golden Legend” in the 13th century. In religious iconography, the dragon represents the devil or Paganism, & the princess represents the Church.

In Roman Catholicism, he is also venerated as 1 of the 14 Holy Helpers. His feast day, St. George’s Day, is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The Church of St. George in Lydda (now Lod, Israel) has a sarcophagus traditionally believed to contain George’s relics.

According to tradition, a fierce dragon was causing panic in the city of Silene in Libya when our guy George arrived there. To keep the creature from ravaging the city, the inhabitants gave it 2 sheep each day. But when the sheep were no longer enough, they were forced to sacrifice people chosen by the townesfolk themselves.

Eventually, the king’s daughter was selected, & no one was willing to take her place. Georger saved her by slaying the dragon with a lance. The king was so grateful that he offered George treasures as a reward for saving his daughter’s life.

But George refused & urged him to give to the poor instead. The townspeople were so astonished by what they saw that they all became Christians & were baptised.

George (In Arabic, Jirjis or Girgus) is included in some Muslim texts as a prophetic figure. The Islamic sources state that he loved a group of believers who were in direct contact with the last apostles of Jesus. He was described as a rich merchant who opposed Dadan, the king of Mosul, in his reaction to Apollo’s stature.

After confronting the king, George was tortured many times to 0 effect, was imprisoned, & was aided, allegedly, by angels. Eventually, he was exposed to the fact that the idols were possessed by Satan. But was martyred when the city was destroyed by God in a rain of fire. (This is giving serious Sodom & Gomorrah vibes.)

According to Muslim legends, he was martyred under the rule of Diocletian & was killed 3x. But was resurrected every time. The legend is more developed in the Persian version of al-Tabari, wherein he resurrects the dead, makes trees sprout, & pillars bear flowers.

After 1 of his deaths, the world is covered by darkness, which is lifted only when he’s resurrected. He’s able to convert the queen, but she’s put to death. Then he prays to God to allow him to die, which is granted.

Al-Tah’labi says that George was from Palestine & lived in the times of some disciples of Jesus. He was killed many times by the king of Mosul, & resurrected each time. When the king tried to starve him, he touched a piece of dry wood brought by a woman & turned it green, with varieties of fruits & veggies growing from it. After his 4th death, the city was burnt along with him.

English soldiers under Richard the Lionheart invoked St. George at the Siege of Acre. They brought his “cult” back to Britain, where he replaced Edward the Confessor as the nation’s primary patron because he represented “active” chivalry rather than “passive” monasticism.

In 1348, King Edward III founded the Order of the Garter (the oldest and highest order of chivalry in England), putting it under the patronage of St. George. The current British monarch, King Charles III, is the head of the order today.

In the General Roman Calendar, George’s feast day is on April 23. In the Tridentine calendar of 1568, it was given the rank of “Semi double.” In Pope Pius XII’s calendar, the rand was reduced to “Simple.” In Pope Paul VI’s 1969 revision, it appears as an “optional memorial.”

In some countries, like England, the rank is higher. It’s a Solemnity (Roman Catholic) or Feast (Church of England): if it falls between Palm Sunday & the Second Sunday of Easter inclusive, it’s transferred to the Monday after the Second Sunday of Easter.

The Russian Orthodox Church also celebrates 2 additional feasts in honor of St. George. One is on November 3, commemorating the consecration of a cathedral dedicated to him in Lydda during the reign of Constantine the Great (305-337). When the church was consecrated, George’s relics were transferred there. The other feast day is on November 26 for a church dedicated to him in Kyiv (or Kiev, Ukraine), circa 1054.

In Bulgaria, St. George’s Day is celebrated on May 6. It’s customary to slaughter & roast a lamb. George’s Day is also a public holiday.

In Serbia & Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Serbian Orthodox Church celebrates St. George on May 6. It’s a common slava (patron saint day) among ethnic Serbs.

In Egypt, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria calls St. George the “Prince of Martyrs.” They celebrate his martyrdom on the 23rd of Paremhat of the Coptic Calendar (equal to May 1). The Copts also celebrate the consecration of the 1st church dedicated to him on the 7th of the month of Hatour of the Coptic calendar (equal to November 17).

George is the patron saint of England. His cross forms the national flag of England. By the 14th century, he was declared both the patron saint & protector of the British royal family. He’s also the patron saint of Georgia (the country), Ethiopia, Iberia, Russia, & Bulgaria.

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Saint Anthony the Great is the patron of Animals, farmers, butchers, the poor, basket makers, brushmakers, gravediggers, and the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome. 10 facts for his feast day.

https://topicaltens.blogspot.com/2026/01/17-january-st-anthony-great.html

#Saints #Religion #AnthonyTheGreat #FeastDay

🕯️ Lord God, make us so worthy of your perfect love; that, with your deacon Nicholas Ferrar and his household, we may rule ourselves according to your Word, and serve you with our whole heart; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

#NicholasFerrar #LittleGidding #FeastDay #MinorFeast #Episcopal #EpiscopalChurch #Prayer #Psalms #Advent

http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Nicholas_Ferrar.htm

Celebrating Hild

Today is the Feast Day of Hild of Whitby,1 patron saint of learning and culture (including poetry), who died on this day in 680, having spent 66 years kicking ass and not bothering to take names. We believe she was originally buried at her main foundation of Streoneshalh, now known as Whitby, but sometime after Whitby was destroyed by Viking raids, her remains were, apparently, translated to…well, somewhere else. No one knows. Various religious foundations have claimed her—not unlike Arthur; saintly relics were (and still are) big business—but no one knows for sure.

There are several grave markers from Whitby though I have images of none of them (and none are for Hild). However, there are also several from Hereteu, or Hartlepool (where Hild was abbess for a while before founding and moving to Whitby). One intriguing stone, dated ‘mid-seventh to mid-eighth century,’ was found under the head of some skeletal remains. The runes spell out hildi þryþ, that is, the feminine personal name Hildithryth:

As we don’t know Hild’s full name, it might be tempting to assume this is our Hild’s stone.2 But I doubt it. For one thing it was part of a group of similar burials, and as abbess, saint, and royal advisor I doubt she would have been buried among others. Plus, of course, she was more than likely buried at Whitby. And as Hartlepool was also most likely destroyed by Vikings (as with mos records of this time and place, much was lost in the Viking raids from the late eighth through ninth centuries—all we know is that, after Hild, Hartlepool essentially vanishes from history) no one in their right mind would have transferred her there.

So here’s how I imagine her pillow stone3:

You’ll see I’ve made her cross round-ended and equal-armed, more like the kind of cross I think she would have worn, rather than the more traditional long upright and shorter crosspiece of the Hartlepool marker.

Enough about her death. Back to her life: Why is Hild patron saint of learning and culture/poetry? Learning, because she trained five bishops who became renowned for their own erudition—one of whom, John of Beverley, was the one who ordained and mentored the Venerable Bede—the only British person ever to have been learned enough to be honoured as a Doctor of the Church. Poetry, because she pretty much midwived Engish literature: the earliest surviving piece of Old English is Cædmon’s Hymn, composed at Hild’s behest at Whitby.

I’m not religious but I mark the day because Hild—and Whitby, its abbey, and ammonites—marked my life, in particular my writing life, indelibly.

My first novel was Ammonite, which was published when I was 32. The author photo I used for that book was taken at Whitby Abbey when I was 30. You can tell from the look on my face how much the place affects me. (And in fact I like this photo so much it forms the basis for the cover of my upcoming book, She Is Here.)

In my third novel, The Blue Place, Aud talks longingly of Whitby—now mostly known for the abbey founded by Hild in 657. In Whitby you can commonly find three species of fossil ammonites, or snakestones—the beach is littered with them. A whole genus of ammonites, Hildoceras, is named for Hild. This is Hildoceras bifrons. It’s what I think of when I think of ammonites.

Ammonites fascinate me. Their shell growth—developing into that lovely spiral—is guided by phi. And phi (Φ = 1.618033988749895… ), the basis of the Golden Ratio or Divine Proportion, has all sorts of interesting mathematical properties. The proportions generated by phi lie at the heart of myriad things: the proportions of graceful buildings4, the orderly whorl of a sunflower, ammonites, Fibonacci numbers, population growth, and more. (If you’re interested, a good place to start is Wikipedia.) Phi is what creates the underlying pattern in much of nature. I think phi is responsible for what Hild may think of as God.

There is a legend that ammonites result from Hild getting pissed off one day and turning all the local snakes to stone. The legend was so well-established after her death, that, in the later middle ages and even up until Victorian times, enterprising locals carved heads on the stones and sold them as the snakes she petrified.5

Here’s what H. bifrons looks like as a snakestone:

And here’s a much more finely carved specimen:

When I was working on my black and white zoomorphic series, I tried to draw a snakestone. It turned out to be remarkably difficult to get the proportions mathematically pleasing. I started with a different genus, a ceratite, with a kind of wavy division to each of its segments, because they seemed to grow in more mathematically predictable ways. They’re just not what I think of as a classic ammonite; they seemed a bit, well, boring. I tried jazzing them up a bit—make them look as though they’re dancing to form a kindof ammonite triskele inside a Lindisfarne Gospels style interlace wreath. Better—but not great.

So then I tried yet another genus, a…well, actually I forget what it’s called, maybe a baculite? Anyway:

You won’t find these in Britain, but I like the crinkly look. It had possibilities. So I copied that, and then turned it into a snakestone. Much better!

Earlier this year we were at Worldcon, where we bumped into a friend, Wendy, aka MaudPunk, and got talking about all things metal work—Wendy loves to forge Early Medieval replicas from bronze, silver, copper, etc. (She’s made me several things, including this brooch.) She was wearing a great pendant she’d made, based on the Fairford Duck. Kelley really wanted one. No, she wanted two—one silver, one copper.

I like the duck well enough, but that’s not what fired up my neurones. Ever since Tor commissioned a lovely enamel brooch/pin for Spear, I’ve enjoyed wearing it on my jacket lapel. I get many compliments (“Is that Tiffany?”). The Spear pin is boldly coloured, which I love, but it does occasionally limit my sartorial choices. So I’ve been subconsciously looking for something more neutral. And I thought: A snakestone! In silver! And wouldn’t you know, Wendy had already designed a snakestone pendant; it did not take much persuasion to commission one as a pin.

And, lo, just in time for our birthdays, we got a package with what we’d asked for:

And here’s the pin in all its glory—straight out of its lovely linen pouch:

It’s hand-carved in wax then cast in the metal of your choice, then ground and polished by hand. Here it is on my jacket lapel, where it will stay for at least a couple of weeks, after which I’ll probably alternate with the enamel pin:

So Hild and her ammonite are still bringing me enormous pleasure, and still—as is only fitting for the patron saint of culture and education—helping me learn new things.

Tonight I will raise a glass to Hild, to ammonites, to Whitby, and to all things beautifully made and perfectly proportioned. wes þu hal! Or maybe wæs hæil! I dunno, Old English is not exactly my forte—but drinking and merrymaking is :)

#ammonite #brooch #CædmonSHymn #feastDay #hild #jewellery #MaudPunk #menewood #oldEnglish #phi #pin #snakestone #theBluePlace #whitby

🕯️ Almighty God, who inspired your servant Luke the physician to set forth in the Gospel the love and healing power of your Son: Graciously continue in your Church this love and power to heal, to the praise and glory of your Name; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

#SaintLuke #SaintLukeThePhysician #FeastDay #MajorFeast #Episcopal #EpiscopalChurch #BookOfCommonPrayer

http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Luke.htm

October 18 is the #EpiscopalChurch celebrates the #FeastDay of #StLuke the Evangelist, companion of St. Paul, & a physician of the Church. Today’s #Gospel reading is Luke 4:14-21

Having completed a #SoulShop workshop yesterday about #SuicidePrevention for church leaders, the verses that stand out to me today are 18-19 about bringing good news to the poor, freeing captives, freeing the oppressed, helping the blind to see, & proclaiming the year of God’s favor (these verses also apply to the #NoKings events today). What #Jesus is saying, & doing, in these verses is giving people #Hope That is a very important thing. Hope keeps us alive. Hope keeps us going, working towards & praying for a tomorrow when God’s promises for our lives & the world are manifest on earth as in heaven. We, as members of the #JesusMovement are called to have Hope & to share it with all others, freely, without judgement or expectation, as our Redeemer did & does.

How will you share Hope with someone else today?

St. Rose of Lima

She was born Isabel Flores de Oliva (April 20, 1586-August 24, 1617). She was a member of the Third Order of St. Dominic in Lima, Peru, Spanish Empire. She was known for her life of severe penance & her care of the poor of the city through her own private efforts.

Rose of Lima was born to a noble family & is the patroness saint of embroidery, gardening, cultivation of blooming flowers, florists, embroiderers, sewing lace, gardeners, people ridiculed or misunderstood for their piety, the resolution of family quarrels, against vanity, & the indigenous peoples of the Americas. She was the 1st person born in the Americas to be canonized as a saint.

As a saint, Rose of Lima has been designated as a co-patroness of the Philippines, along with Pudentiana. Both saints were moved to Second-class patronage in September 1942 by Pope Pius XII. But Rose remains the main patroness of Peru & the local people of Latin America. Her image was formerly featured on the highest denomination banknote of Peru.

Her nickname “Rose” comes from a story in her infancy: a servant claimed to have seen her face change into a rose. In 1597, Isabel was confirmed by the Archbishop of Lima, Toribio de Mogrovejo, who was also declared a saint. She then formally changed her name to Rose (Rosa in Spanish) at that time.

When she was a young girl, she copied Catherine of Siena. She started praying 3x a week & performed severe penances in secret. She was admired for her beauty. She cut off her hair & rubbed peppers on her face, to distract from her beauty. She was upset that men were starting to notice her, & not for her spirituality. She turned away all of her suitors. Her family wasn’t having any of that.

Much to her parents’ chigrin, Rose spent a LOT of time thinking about the Blessed Sacrament, which she received daily. This is rare, & odd, for the time. She wanted to take a vow of virginity. But her parents didn’t want that! Out of frustration, her dad gave her a room to herself at the family home.

In addition to fasting, she permanently abstained from eating meat. She helped the sick & hungry around her community. She would bring them to the room, her dad built, to take care of the sick. To help her family financially, Rose would sell fine needlework she made. She would also take flowers to the market to sell as well.

To help the poor, she would make & sell lace & embroidery. This was in addition to all the prayer & she did penance in a small grotto she’d built. She was otherwise a recluse. She only left her room to go to church.

She attracted the attention of the friars of the Dominican Order. She wanted to become a nun. But her dad wasn’t hearing any of that noise. So instead, she entered the Third Order of St. Dominic, while she was living in her parents’ home.

When she was 20, she started wearing the habit of a tertiary & took a vow of perpetual virginity. A tertiary is a lay member of a religious order’s Third Order, who lives in the secular (worldly) world while they strive for Christian perfection by following the spiritual way of life associated with that particular order. The First Order is the clergy, the Second Order is the religious women in the community (official nuns).

She allowed herself only 2 hours a night of sleep, at most, so she could have more time to devote to prayer. She also wore a heavy metal crown made of silver, that had small spikes on the inside. This was to imitate the Crown of Thorns worn by Jesus.

For 11 years, she lived like this. Throughout this time, there would be periods of ecstasy. She passed away on August 24, 1617, at the age of 31. She had been battling a long illness. It’s said that she prophesied her death date.

Her funeral was held in the cathedral. It was attended by all the public authorities of Lima. August 23 is her feast day. It’s August 30th in the Traditional calendar.

Rose was beatified by Pope Clement IX on May 10, 1667. She was canonized on April 12, 1671 by Pope Clement I. She was the first Catholic in the Americas to be officially declared a saint.

Her shine is inside of the convent of St. Dominic in Lima. The Catholic Church says that many miracles happened after her death: she cured a leper; & at the time of her death, the city of Lima smelled like roses; roses started falling from the sky.

Rose’s skull, surmounted with a crown of roses, is on public display at the Basilica in Lima, Peru.

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#10May1667 #12April1671 #1597 #20April1586 #24August1617 #Americas #ArchbishopOfLima #August23 #August30 #Basilica #Beatified #BlessedSacrament #Canonized #Cathedral #CatherineOfSiena #Convent #CrownOfThorns #CultivationOfBloomingFlowers #DominicanOrder #Embroidery #Embroilerers #fasting #FeastDay #FineNeedlework #Florists #Gardeners #Gardening #IndigenousPeoples #IsabelFloresDeOliva #Lace #LatinAmerica #Leper #Lima #Miracles #Nun #PerpetualVirginity #Peru #Philippines #Piety #PopeClementIX #PopeClementX #PopePiusXII #Pudentiana #Recluse #ReligiousEcstasy #Rosa #Roses #Saint #September1942 #SewingLace #Shrine #Skull #Spanish #SpanishEmpire #StDominic #StRoseOfLima #Tertiary #ThirdOrderOfStDominic #ToribioDeMogrovejo #TraditionalCalender #Vanity #VowOfVirginity

“You may be feeling bored with what’s around you. But look again as St. Francis would. Francis was continually overwhelmed by the beauty of the world; and not just trees and flowers, but also the wounded, the broken, and the sad. He had a vivid sense of the sacramentality of all of creation. All things reflected their creator’s love and filled him with wonder and joy. Ask God to renew your vision.”

#SaintFrancisOfAssisi #FeastDay #EpiscopalChurch #SeasonOfCreation

https://www.ssje.org/2020/10/04/joy-to-the-world-br-geoffrey-tristram-2/