Tuesday, August 19

 
Hearts and Fish, Storks and Bishops

A Christian has a union with Jesus Christ more noble, more intimate and more perfect than the members of a human body have with their head.

--St. John Eudes


Today we have a rather mixed bag when it comes to saints; none too famous, none too obscure (well, some too obscure), but all with stories to tell. Most prominent of them is the seventeenth-century St. John Eudes, founder of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary and the Sisters of Charity, and author of the devotion to the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Today, around the same time St. John was propigating his message of submission to the Sacred Heart, Bl. Peter Zuñiga and the Japanese crew of the ship carrying him were beheaded at Nagasaki. Today we also remember St. Louis of Tolouse, a reluctant bishop, son of the King of Naples, who was a great-nephew of St. Louis of France and of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. He is shown in art as a Franciscan vested in an episcopal cope spattered with the fleur-de-lys emblem of his royal house of Anjou. Today as well is the feast of St. Magnus, a widower, monk and bishop who was the father of St. Agricola of Avignon. St. Magnus is patron of fish-mongers while his son is considered a protector of storks. Also on the calendar today are St. Guenninus and Bl. Guerricus, who share nothing save a similar-sounding and peculiar name.

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