Have you ever wondered who your birthday saint is? Saints are celebrated on their feast days and their feast days are typically recognized on the day they died. Why is this? Well, we celebrate our birthdays on the day we were born into this world. So, it stands to reason that we celebrate the saints on the day they were born into heaven.
There’s a fantastic way to combine this.
Finding your birthday saint
Your birthday saint would be the saint (or saints) whose feast day is your birthday. There’s a few resources to find out if you don’t already know who that is. You can also google “saint for [such and such a day]” and enter your birthday. You may be surprised. Try looking at these sites:
Franciscan Media’s Saint of the Day
Take some time and read about your saint or saints and add that saint(s) to your heavenly army. Yes, army. We’ve got so many in heaven praying for us! You may have a patron saint, a confirmation saint, particular saints you lean towards, family members who have passed (even if they’re in purgatory, they can pray for us!), plus Mary, our Mother! Build your army and you’re never alone in your struggles. It’s so good to have someone on your side.
So who’s my birthday saint? Turns out I have a fair few! Here are some of them.
Saint Bridget of Sweden
Saint Bridget of Sweden is mine. She had visions of Christ crucified from the young age of seven. She was married and had eight children, including Saint Catherine of Sweden. Once widowed, she lived a penitent life. She had the favor of the king and founded a monastery which grew into an order called the Bridgetines.
In her late forties, she made a pilgrimage to Rome and suffered debt and “opposition to her work against Church abuses.” She made another pilgrimage later to the Holy Land. With that, she suffered a shipwreck and the death of her son, Charles. She died in 1373. In 1999, she was made patroness of Europe along with Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
There are others . . .
Saint Apollinaris
I may like this saint particularly because he was believed to be a student of Saint Peter, my confirmation saint and the first pope. Saint Apollinaris was the first bishop of Ravenna, Italy. During the first century, Christians were not welcomed often. He was exiled for preaching and converting others. Emperor Vespasian banished all Christians, which led to Apollinaris to be beaten by an angry mob, leading to his death. He is invoked against gout, epilepsy, and sexual diseases.
Saint Ezekiel
How cool is it that Ezekiel the Prophet has a feast day on my birthday! Ezekiel lived around 598 B.C. and he prophesied the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the fall of pagan nations, and the return of theocracy. The Book of Ezekiel is between Bachus and Daniel in the Old Testament and has forty-eight chapters. John often refers to Ezekiel’s writing in the Book of Revelation and their writings are similar. He was buried with ancestors of Abraham.
Saint John Cassian
Saint John Cassian was an Eastern monk and a writer. Of course, I relate to the writer part! He became a disciple of Saint John Chrysostom in the year 400 and went to Rome to defend the saint before Pope Innocent. He founded monasteries in southern France and wrote Institutes of the Monastic Life and Conferences on the Egyptian Monks. Both impacted Saint Benedict. He wrote many other pieces which influenced Christians. He was never fully canonized in the West but is recognized as a saint in the East.
Give it a try! Search for your birthday saint and see if you can build your heavenly army!
Featured Image: Wikimedia commons.
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