Viewing all items in Resource Category: Holy Days

Catherine of Siena, who was born 1347, should be the patron saint of anyone who has grown up in a large family, and mastered the two vital skills for survival:  how to stand up for yourself, and how to make peace with others. Catherine had siblings!  At least 19 of them.  Her father was a...

Editor:  As the church year does not change, much of this material has appeared before.  New material is marked with an asterisk. 1          St David’s Day (two options) 2          Chad – Bishop of Lichfield and missionary c 672 4          Casimir 5          Eusebius *5        SHROVE TUESDAY 6          ASH WEDNESDAY 7          Perpetua and Felicitas 8           Woodbine Willie...

On 1st March Wales celebrates its patron saint, David – or, in Welsh, Dewi or Dafydd. He is indisputably British, and is revered wherever Welsh people have settled. As with most figures from the so-called ’Dark Ages’ (he lived in the sixth century), reliable details about his life are scarce, but there are enough for...

1st March is St David’s Day, and it’s time for the Welsh to wear daffodils or leeks. Shakespeare called this custom ‘an honourable tradition begun upon an honourable request’ – but nobody knows the reason.  Why should anyone have ever ‘requested’ that the Welsh wear leeks or daffodils to honour their patron saint? It’s a...

Chad (d 672) should be the patron saint of any modern bishop whose consecration is questioned by another bishop.   Chad was consecrated a bishop, then deposed – and then re-consecrated! It all began when Oswiu, king of Northumbria, made him bishop of the Northumbrian see.   But due to a scarcity of appropriate bishops, two dubious...

Casimir is a good patron saint for anyone whose father drives them crazy.  For he did not let an unhappy background stop him from becoming the person he wanted to be.  Yet Casimir’s father, the King of Poland back in 1458, was no picnic as a dad. For if you think your teens were difficult,...

Ever wonder why we eat pancakes just before Lent?  The tradition dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, when Christians spent Lent in repentance and severe fasting. So on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the church bell would summon them to confession, where they would be ‘shriven’, or absolved from their sins, which gives us Shrove Tuesday.  ...

Eusebius is the saint for you if you believe in the Bible, and also in providing hospitality.  He was born of a good family in Cremona, Italy, in the fourth century, and felt called to become a monk.  As Eusebius was ascetic by nature, he sought out St Jerome in Rome, who advocated an austere...

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday.  But why ‘Ash’ Wednesday?  The reason has to do with getting things right between you and God, and the tradition goes right back to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the Israelites often sinned.  When they finally came to their senses, and saw their evil ways as God saw...

Have you done something which haunts you?  Which makes you feel restless and defensive, every time you think of it?  Why not deal with it this month, and put it behind you?   Whatever your mistake has been, consider what the Bible has to say to you: ‘I have not come to call the virtuous but...

This story could come straight out of modern Africa.  Perpetua was a young married woman of 22 who had recently become a Christian.  But the authorities had forbidden any new conversions, and soon she and some other catechumens were arrested and sentenced to death.  This was not under Islamic State, nor Boko Haram, but under...

Here’s a ‘saint’ that the Church of England remembers from the 1st World War –  the Revd. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy MC,  or ‘Woodbine Willie’, as everyone knew this popular, much-loved army chaplain on the Western Front. Studdert Kennedy (27th June 1883 – 8th March 1929) had been born in Leeds as the seventh of nine...