Saints

[mummymonkey]

What's the deal with saints? Are they just mini Gods to make up for the lack of Gods we've had these last two millennia? There seems to be a saint for most things in life, just like you used to have different gods for war, wine and whatever.

Saints are a bad idea (http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/2594/dimay97.htm)
Saints are a good idea (http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Cathedral/6070/cross.html)

[Filippo Lippi]

Whichever they are (I'd plump for bad), they are certainly very profitable. Was in Assisi last month and there's any amount of old garbage with St. Francis (et al) on it.

[VicDaring]

Originally posted by mummymonkey
What's the deal with saints?

Well, Horn and Stallworth are good receivers, but Brooks is kind of underperforming so far. So I guess as long as McCallister gets around 30 carries a game they can stay in contention until...oh, wait...that's not what you were asking, was it?

[Skeptical Greg]

Well there seem to be at least 4,560 of them..

PATRON SAINTS INDEX (http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/indexsnt.htm)

If you suffer from haemorrhoids, or just want to avoid them, Saint Fiacre is the one you want to call..

St. Fiacre (http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintf13.htm)

You realize of course, there are thousands of miracles attributed to these saints ..

However there seems to have been an abrupt, almost complete cessation of miracles that corresponded with the arrival of the video camera and mass media in general.

So far, the Catholic Church has not offered an explanation for this, but there is research going on that hopes to demonstrate, that the ability for miracles to be performed is inversely proportional to the amount of pornography available..

[Prospero]

So far as I can tell, saints represent a specialized link to god for whoever believes in that stuff. However, upon further consideration, I'm led to believe that the entire "saintly" instituation is actually just a very effective means of keeping people in the Church. By having these demigods to act as personal representatives to the big guy, people feel a more personalized, intimate version of the church that doesn't involve a priest's groping hands. Saints hold a lot of appeal to people that need specific help in an area and thus feel obligated to go to church to pray to that saint. Otherwise, how else will whatever needs help get solved? It's not like you can actually work to solve your problems. Divine intervention is always preferable. Sit on your knees and mope instead of actually getting the job done. How could you fail?
:i:

[zakur]

Raised by uber-Catholic parents, I was quite familiar with the whole Christian pantheon of demigods (i.e. saints). There's one for every problem.

For instance, the patron saint for lost items is St. Anthony of Padua. My parents taught us a little rhyme to use whenever we lost something: "Tony, Tony, look around. Something's lost and must be found."

Wacky.

Here's a testimonial (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/3975/anthony.htm). So wacky.

Need to sell your house? Bury a statue St. Joseph in your front yard - upside down, facing the street. I'm not making this up. Catholics swear by it.

Pretty soon, we'll have a saint to pray to for protection against spam and email virsuses. I hear St. Isadore is the front-runner to be named patron saint of the Internet by the Vatican. :rolleyes:

[Melissa Johnson]

Originally posted by zakur
Raised by uber-Catholic parents, I was quite familiar with the whole Christian pantheon of demigods (i.e. saints). There's one for every problem.

For instance, the patron saint for lost items is St. Anthony of Padua. My parents taught us a little rhyme to use whenever we lost something: "Tony, Tony, look around. Something's lost and must be found."

Wacky.

Here's a testimonial (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/3975/anthony.htm). So wacky.

Need to sell your house? Bury a statue St. Joseph in your front yard - upside down, facing the street. I'm not making this up. Catholics swear by it.

Pretty soon, we'll have a saint to pray to for protection against spam and email virsuses. I hear St. Isadore is the front-runner to be named patron saint of the Internet by the Vatican. :rolleyes:


Bwah. My parents too, only we prayed to St. Jude (lost causes, actually) when we lost stuff. See, that's the rub--what if you're praying to the wrong saint? Then you'll never find your missing sock, unless the request gets shuffled along to the appropriate customer service desk...

I always loved the symbolic pictures on holy cards, like St. Lucy with her little plate with eyes. Gah, that was weird. And St. Barbara, with her sword--often, with martyr saints, the method of their demise had something to do with what illness they were in charge of.

I still think saints--the concept of them, the history of their veneration--are interesting in a mythological, anthropological sense.

If I had a favorite saint, it would have to be St. Francis, who was an absolute loon and gave the church hierarchy of his day fits.

[Morwen]

Originally posted by zakur
Raised by uber-Catholic parents, I was quite familiar with the whole Christian pantheon of demigods (i.e. saints). There's one for every problem.

For instance, the patron saint for lost items is St. Anthony of Padua. My parents taught us a little rhyme to use whenever we lost something: "Tony, Tony, look around. Something's lost and must be found."

...


Heh. I'm also familiar with the wacky pantheon of saints. It gets downright surreal sometimes, and, if you have some imagination, very creepy.

However, at least in Spain, there's this kind of... tough-love approach to one's saints. If you hear what people tell to some images of the virgin Mary, you'd... blush. And you couldn't copy what they say on this forum and keep it clean and family-friendly, for example.

I guess it's the old idol mentality, refurbished. One saint for every little thing and little sacrifices (prayers, candles) to invoke their favor. The church tries to make it all very metaphysical and sophisticated, but, bottom line, most believers go and pray to the little weird statuette rather than to the hazy, hard-to-grasp concept of omnipotency and all those things they whip up in churches. In protestant countries is the Jesus-as-buddy that has to carry all the weight. Catholics diversify more, but it's all the same, at heart.

And some saints have it really tough, lemme tell you. Take San Cucufato. He's another (there are several) saint patron for lost items.

So there's this little weird superstition that goes around. It's very Mediterranean: crude, down-to-earth, somewhat cruel, direct, happily obscene. You lose something, you tie a knot in a handkerchief while you say the following incanta... er, prayer:

"San Cucufato, los cojones te ato, si no me lo encuentras, no te los desato"

(Meaning, in a somewhat loose translation: "Saint Cucufato, I tie up your... er... genitalia, find what I've lost or I don't untie them")

I have no hard evidence about the effectiveness of such mag... er, prayer ;), but as a comeuppance for all the crap the church says you have to go through, it feels about right. And shows that, at heart, and no matter what all the Fathers of the Church say or write, it's all about magical thinking (I'm thinking of that nice generic prayer: "Dear God, please change the laws of Nature on my benefit").

(Edited: typos)