From the patriarchy deliver us, O Lord.
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1. When Judith broke bad for the good of the Jewish people
The Jews were in a tight spot. The notoriously bloodthirsty Assyrians were invading led by the most notoriously bloodthirsty Assyrian, Holofernes, and no one had the stones to do anything about it. So your girl put on her best winged eyeliner, marched straight into the enemy camp, batted her eyelashes, got Holofernes black-out drunk, decapitated him, and took his head as a trophy. She remained happily unmarried for the rest of her days, and probably had a lot of cats.
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2. When St. Kassia dragged an emperor over five miles of broken glass in front of his entire court
St. Kassia was an intelligent, talented, beautiful daughter of the Byzantine nobility who was ambitious to enter a monastery in order to advance her literary career. So naturally the Emperor Theophilos ignored all of that except the “beautiful” part and selected her to be a candidate in his bride show, which is exactly as messed up as it sounds. She won the show (congratulations? I guess?), and as Theophilos handed her the traditional prize golden apple, he engaged in that time-honored broflake past time of negging by reminding Kassia that “through a woman, sin came into the world.” And maybe he thought it was a clever Genesis reference with the apple, or something? Anyway. Kassia saw her out and replied, loud enough for the whole court to hear, “Yes, and through a woman salvation came into the world.” Sufficiently roasted, Theophilos promptly gave the apple to the next in line, Kassia went on to become one of the most famous poets of the Byzantine empire, and Theophilos went on to become a heretic and an abject political failure.
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3. When St. Katharine Drexel spun the Klan right round
St. Katharine and her nuns were dedicated to wiping out poverty and racism in 1920s America, which at the time was such a laughably irrelevant feat she may as well have founded an order dedicated to interstellar space travel. More woke than roughly 100% of the other rich, white women of her time, her work put her square in the crosshairs (ha) of the Klan, who in 1922 threatened to tar and feather a Beaumont, Texas pastor and blow up his church if he didn’t close Katharine’s school in the area. She exhorted her sisters to “attack with joy” by praying, and “joy” arrived a few days later in the form of a tornado that blew the local KKK lair to matchwood, killing two of its members. The Klan never threatened Katharine’s order again.
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4. When St. Krispina was the patron saint of sass
In 304 AD, St. Krispina was arrested for professing Christianity and subsequently subjected to a mind-numbingly monotonous trial that was a martyrdom in itself. The proconsul demanded Krispina renounce her faith, and Krispina refused. The proconsul repeated his demands over and over again ad nauseam, with Krispina getting just a tiny bit more done each time, to the point where she began plainly insulting the proconsul, the pagan idols, and asking the court to just behead her already. Eventually, the proconsul sentenced her to execution by the sword, at which she sassed back, “Thanks be to God who has deigned to free me from your hands.”
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5. When St. Catherine of Siena told the Pope to stop being such a manbaby
For most of Catherine’s life, the Papacy had resided in Avignon, France, instead of Rome. Catherine, and a lot of other people, did not like this one bit. So she paid Pope Gregory a little visit in the summer of 1376 and scared him straight by telling him things about himself she couldn’t possibly have known. Mission accomplished, she returned home fully expecting the Papacy to be returned to Rome. That fall she received word that Pope Gregory was having second thoughts due to the influence of French Cardinals. Knowing herself to be a thousand times more, ahem, motivating than some rando, she launched a volley of letters at the cowardly Pope so scathing that he was firmly ensconced back in Rome by the following January. Among other things, she abjured the Pope “on behalf of Christ crucified” that he not be “a timorous child,” but to cast out all “servile fear”. She signed off with the exhortation “up, Father, like a man!”
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6. When insulting Joan of Arc was some broflake’s last mistake
Joan of Arc smashed Medieval gender roles to bits in a variety of ways, so it’s hard to choose just once aspect of her life that makes you yell “slaaaaay” on the inside. But there was this one time she went out to survey the English fortifications during the Siege of Orléans, and ended up yelling at the English that if they surrendered, God would have mercy and they would be spared the humiliation of having Joan personally whup they ass. The English captain, one William Glasdale, responded with a volley of physical threats and lewd sexual insults (because of course), after which Joan repeated hers and God’s generous offer and marched back to camp. Glasdale fell in a river and drowned under the weight of his own armor in the next battle. Which Joan was later kind of sad about, but also…sorry not sorry?
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