Saturday, September 13
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The Man With the Golden Mouth
I mentioned having seen what might have been the tomb of St. John Chrysostom in St. Peter's recently. Providentially, today is this great Doctor's feast day. He is most famous for his clear and coherent sermons, which earned for him the office of patriarch of Constantinople in 398, and was exiled from his see twice, dying en route after being banished to Pythius, at Antioch in the year 407. He is the author of a splendid pre-Communion prayer, the reviser of the eastern Divine Liturgy and is patron of lecturers, orators, Constantinople (as well as Istanbul, not Constantinople) as well as epileptics for some unfathomable reason. He also seems to have been plagued by an upset stomach, if Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend is to be believed, and of course, it should be. He was, however, unlike St. Gregory, not debonair, though Jacobus says that the Emperor Theodosius "was of so great debonarity." Huh, what do you make of that, Don Jim?
On the old calendar, the feast of the Holy Name of Mary was celebrated either yesterday or today, and we here at the Shrine honestly aren't sure, but my money is on yesterday. Oh well. Also, today is the feast of St. Hedwig of Herford (it's in Westphalia, okay?), niece of Bl. Warinus of Corvey, as well as St. Aigulf, who was murdered by the heretical Lombards after trying to hijack the relics of St. Bernard, and St. Macrobius, whom I can't seem to find much on. There's also St. Maurillus, who lost the keys to his cathedral and found them again in the belly of a fish, and St. Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, whom St. Gregory the Great thought papabile, probably because he didn't lose his house keys that often. The Greeks recall today St. Cornelius from the Book of Acts, said to be the first pagan to accept baptism, as well as Empress Ketevan of Georgia, martyred in 1624 in Persia by having a red-hot helmet placed on her head, among other things.
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