Patron Saint of Travelers

Why St. Christopher?

The name is the story. Christopher means Christ-bearer, and the legend has him as a giant of a man who carried travellers across a dangerous river. One night he carried a child who grew impossibly heavy as they crossed, and who told him at the far bank that he had been carrying the weight of the world and its maker. That is why the medal shows a man mid-river with a child on his shoulder, and why it ended up in a hundred million cars. There is a persistent rumour that the Church "removed" him or "decided he never existed", and it is worth correcting because it stops people wearing the medal. In the 1969 revision of the calendar his feast was removed from the universal calendar, along with a number of others whose historical record was too thin to establish with confidence. That is a statement about documentation, not about existence, and it is not a suppression. His feast is still kept locally, devotion to him is entirely permitted, and the medal carries exactly the meaning it always did. For a journey specifically, St. Raphael is the other traditional intercessor, since the Book of Tobit is one long account of him accompanying a young man on a road.

Who was St. Christopher?

Almost nothing is known about Christopher with any certainty, and that is worth saying first because it is the honest position and it does not remove him. A martyr of that name is attested in the third century, probably in Asia Minor, and a church was dedicated to him in Bithynia by 452.

Everything else is legend, and it is a very good legend. A giant of a man looking for the strongest king to serve is told the strongest is Christ, and is set to carrying travellers across a river as his service. One night a child asks to be carried and grows unbearably heavy midstream, and tells him he has carried the weight of the world and its maker. The name means Christ-bearer, which is where the story came from rather than the other way round.

In 1969 his feast was removed from the universal calendar and made optional, on the grounds that the historical record is too thin. That is not a demotion of him, and it is certainly not, as was widely reported at the time, the Church declaring he never existed.

The feast: July 25

July 25, an optional memorial since the 1969 revision of the calendar. The medal remains one of the most widely carried objects in Catholic life, in cars and on keys, and there is nothing improper in that: the reduced status is about the thinness of the historical record, not about the legitimacy of asking his prayers.

How to ask their intercession

Ask before the journey rather than during it. The traditional practice is simply to keep the medal in the car or on your person as a reminder to make the request rather than as a charm. The object does not protect anyone; the asking is the point, and a medal you never think about does nothing at all.