St. Christopher

Almost nothing about Christopher is known with certainty, and saying so first is the honest position rather than a demolition. A martyr of that name is attested in the third century, probably in Asia Minor, and a church was dedicated to him at Chalcedon, in Bithynia, by 452. That is the historical floor.

Everything else is legend, and it is one of the best legends in the calendar. A giant of a man goes looking for the strongest king to serve. Told that the strongest is Christ, and having no idea how to find him, he is set by a hermit to carry travellers across a dangerous river as his service.

One night a child asks to be carried and grows unbearably heavy midstream, until the man can barely stand. On the far bank the child tells him he has just carried the weight of the world and the one who made it. The name is the story: Christophoros, Christ-bearer, which is where the legend came from rather than the other way round.

In 1969 the revision of the general Roman calendar took his feast off the calendar the whole Latin Church keeps and left it to local calendars, because his Acts are legendary and his cult was not part of the Roman tradition. That was widely reported at the time as the Church declaring he never existed, or that he was no longer a saint. It was neither.

His medal is probably the single most carried Catholic object in the world, in cars, on keys, in wallets. There is nothing improper in that, and the calendar change of 1969 alters none of it: it was about which feasts the whole Latin Church must keep, not about whether he may be asked.

The patronage has widened with the technology. Travellers first, then sailors, then drivers, then pilots, and in practice anyone about to move a distance they are slightly worried about.

There is also something worth noticing in the legend itself, given how the devotion is used. The man in the story is not protected on the crossing. He is nearly crushed. What he gets is not a safe passage but the knowledge of who he was carrying, which is a stranger and better thing than the medal usually suggests.

Said before setting out, and in many households said aloud by whoever is driving. Medals are commonly kept in a car or worn, and a priest will bless one on request.

On the status: his feast is no longer on the general Roman calendar, which affects what every parish in the Latin Church celebrates and nothing about whether you may ask his prayers. Anyone telling you the Church removed him as a saint has misread what happened in 1969.

There is no widely kept novena to St. Christopher; the devotion is a daily one, said before setting out rather than counted over nine days. Where a novena is prayed it runs July 17 to July 25, closing on the feast, and is usually taken up for someone travelling a long way or working on the road.

What is known. Very little, and the Church says so. The Catholic Encyclopedia opens its entry by saying that “almost nothing certain is known about his life or death.” Two facts stand firm. A stone inscription from Chalcedon, across the Bosphorus from Constantinople, records a martyr’s shrine dedicated to a Christopher and built between 450 and 452. And the Roman Martyrology, the Church’s official list of saints, still reads for July 25: In Lycia, sancti Christophori, martyris, “In Lycia, St. Christopher, martyr.” A martyr of that name, honored by the middle of the fifth century, is the historical floor.

What is legend. The story everyone knows took its classic form in the Golden Legend, the thirteenth-century collection of saints’ lives by Jacobus de Voragine. There he is Reprobus, a man of Canaan of enormous size, who resolves to serve only the strongest master. He serves a king until he sees the king make the sign of the cross when the devil is named. He then serves the devil, until he sees the devil flee from a cross by the wayside. A hermit first tells him to fast and pray, and then sets him to serve Christ by carrying travellers over a dangerous river. One night a small child asks to be carried and grows so heavy that the giant can barely reach the bank. The child tells him he has borne “all the weight of the world” and the one who made it. His staff, planted in the ground, flowers. He is martyred in Lycia under the emperor Decius.

Older Eastern stories are stranger still: one tradition gives him the head of a dog before his conversion. None of this is history, and the page does not pretend it is. The legend is best read as a sermon on his name: Christophoros, the Christ-bearer.

The Church did not remove him as a saint, and it did not declare that he never existed. On February 14, 1969, Pope Paul VI approved a revised General Roman Calendar (the motu proprio Mysterii Paschalis), in force from January 1, 1970. The General Calendar is the short list of feasts that the whole Latin Church keeps together. To make room for saints from every century and continent, the reform moved many feasts off it and left them to local calendars.

St. Christopher was one of them. The official commentary gives the reason in one sentence. His memorial, added to the Roman calendar around 1550, “is left to particular calendars: although the Acts of St. Christopher are legendary, ancient evidence of his veneration exists; however, the cult of this saint does not belong to the Roman tradition” (Calendarium Romanum, 1969). July 25 in the General Calendar belongs to St. James the Apostle.

So, precisely: his feast left the universal calendar and went to local ones. He remains in the Roman Martyrology. Dioceses, parishes and places that have him as patron may keep his day, and anyone may ask his prayers. The Church teaches that the saints “do not cease to intercede with the Father for us” (CCC 956). It was widely reported at the time as a demotion, or as the Church saying he never existed. The documents say nothing of the kind.

A St. Christopher medal usually shows the giant mid-river with the child on his shoulder, often with a one-line prayer to him around the edge. Wearing one is a way of asking his prayers for your journeys, and of remembering whom you carry. The Catechism names medals among the forms of popular piety that surround the Church’s sacramental life (CCC 1674). A blessed medal is a sacramental. Sacramentals do not work on their own. By the Church’s prayer they “prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it” (CCC 1670).

That is also the honest limit. Medieval images of him often carried a promise that whoever looked on his image “shall not faint or fall on that day.” That is where his old patronage against sudden death comes from. It was a popular belief, never Church teaching. The Catechism is plain that treating a sacred sign as if its mere presence worked, apart from faith, is superstition (CCC 2111). The medal guarantees nothing. It is a prayer you carry, and it means as much as the asking behind it.

For a long journey, a flight, or someone you love who is on the road. It asks God for protection, and asks St. Christopher to pray for you, which is the right order. Scripture gives the promise behind it: “The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forward, and forever more” (Psalm 121:8).

Short enough to say with the engine running, on the school run or the commute. It asks for attention and for the safety of other people, not only your own.

Feast day. July 25 in the Latin Church, kept today on local calendars and listed on that day in the Roman Martyrology. The Eastern Churches keep his memory on May 9.

Patron of. Travellers above all, and with them drivers and everyone who works in transport. Sailors and boatmen, since his story is a river crossing; the Catholic Encyclopedia also names mariners, bookbinders and gardeners. He is traditionally invoked against sudden death and storms. He is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints invoked together in the Middle Ages, especially against disease.

For journeys he is not the only patron. St. Raphael the Archangel, who walks the whole road with Tobias in the Book of Tobit, is the other traditional intercessor. Both are gathered on the page for the patron saint of travelers.