Patron Saints

A saint who is asked, by long tradition or by a formal choice, to be a particular advocate with God for a place, a trade, a group, a need or a person. The Catholic Encyclopedia’s definition is one that has been “assigned by a venerable tradition, or chosen by election, as a special intercessor with God and the proper advocate” of those in their care.

The idea rests on the communion of saints. The Church teaches that those already with God go on praying for those still on the way: “They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us” (CCC 956). In canonising a saint the Church proposes them to the faithful “as models and intercessors” (CCC 828), and the Catechism draws the practical conclusion: “We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world” (CCC 2683).

No. Worship belongs to God alone. Asking a saint to pray for you is the same act as asking a friend to, with the difference that the saint is already with God. Scripture asks Christians to do exactly this for one another: “I exhort therefore, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and givings of thanks be made for all men” (1 Timothy 2:1), and “The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective” (James 5:16).

The usual objection is the verse that follows a few lines later: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). The Catechism answers it in the same sentence in which it teaches the saints’ intercession: they pray for us “through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus” (CCC 956). Their prayer does not compete with Christ’s. It is part of it, the way a family’s prayers for a sick child are part of the child’s own. Nor is it only about favours: “It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven” (CCC 957), but to be drawn closer to Christ with them.

Mostly, it doesn’t. The great majority of patronages grew up by custom, and the Church received them rather than decreed them. They usually attach for one of a few reasons:

• The saint’s own life. A saint who suffered a disease, did a trade or served a group is asked by people in the same situation: St. Peregrine for cancer, St. Camillus, once a hospital patient himself, for nurses.
• A story. St. Anthony and the stolen book, St. Nicholas and the dowries. Some are history and some are legend, and the pages here say which.
• Relics and places. The Catholic Encyclopedia lists, for churches and towns, the possession of a saint’s body or relics, their preaching of the Gospel there, their work or death in the place, and the devotion of a founder.
• Popular association, sometimes recent. St. Gertrude of Nivelles became the patron of cats, apparently in the twentieth century, by a route through mice.

Formal acts do exist, chiefly for places and for a handful of universal patronages. Pope Urban VIII laid down rules on March 23, 1638 for choosing the patrons of churches, cities and countries. The Sacred Congregation of Rites declared St. Joseph patron of the Catholic Church on December 8, 1870 (Quemadmodum Deus). Pope Paul VI named St. Benedict principal patron of all Europe on October 24, 1964 (Pacis nuntius), and Pope John Paul II named St. Francis of Assisi heavenly patron of those who promote ecology on November 29, 1979 (Inter sanctos).

There is no test and no wrong answer, but there are some well-worn ways in.

• Your name. The oldest way. At Baptism a Christian may be given the name of a saint, and “the patron saint provides a model of charity; we are assured of his intercession” (CCC 2156). If your name is a saint’s, start there, even if you were not named after them on purpose.
• Your Confirmation saint. Many Catholics take a saint’s name at Confirmation, and that saint is theirs for life.
• Your work or your need. A nurse, a firefighter, a musician, a student; someone facing cancer or anxiety. The list by need on this page is the place to look.
• Your birthday. Some people take the saint whose feast falls on the day they were born or baptised.
• The one who finds you. Many Catholics will tell you they did not choose their saint: a book, a church, a picture on a relative’s wall kept turning up. That counts.

Online saint “generators” that pick one at random are harmless fun, and not a Church practice. You can have more than one patron, and you can add one at any age.

For the day you choose a patron, the feast day each year, or any morning. It asks God first, and asks the saint to pray.

By what people search for and pray about most, a short list:

• St. Jude, for lost causes and desperate situations, with St. Rita.
• St. Anthony of Padua, for lost things, and lost people.
• St. Christopher, for travellers, and what really happened to him in 1969.
• St. Francis of Assisi, for animals and ecology.
• St. Peregrine, for people living with cancer.
• St. Dymphna, for anxiety, depression and mental illness.
• St. Nicholas, for children.
• St. Cecilia, for musicians.
• St. Florian, for firefighters.
• St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church, of workers, of fathers and of a happy death.