Patron Saint of Athletes
St. Sebastian, feast day 20 January
St. Sebastian is the patron saint of athletes and of soldiers, with his feast on 20 January. The patronage rests on his endurance and physical resilience under martyrdom. Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati is often named alongside him for sport. AngelGuard publishes the story.
Quick facts
Why St. Sebastian?
Sebastian was an officer in the Roman imperial guard who was found to be a Christian and sentenced to death by archers. The famous part of the story is what happened next: he survived it. He was left for dead, recovered, and then went back to confront the emperor directly, at which point he was executed properly. That sequence, endurance, recovery, and a return to the same fight, is why the patronage of athletes attached to him. It is not about strength as display but about the capacity to absorb punishment and continue, which is closer to what sport actually demands than any image of victory. He is also patron of soldiers, of archers by grim irony, and was historically invoked against plague. A more recent figure is often named alongside him: Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian who died in 1925 at twenty-four, a serious mountaineer whose photographs on the rock face are matched by an almost hidden life of charity in the slums of Turin. For young athletes he is frequently the more legible model of the two, being a real person with real photographs rather than a figure from the third century.
How to ask their intercession
Before competition is the traditional moment, and the honest request is not for victory. Sebastian’s story is about what you do after you have been hit, which makes him a better intercessor for the season after an injury than for the day of a final.