CATASTROPHES ISSUE - PATRON SAINTS OF THE MONTH

Saint Barbara is the patron of stonecutters, miners, military engineers, artillery- men, mathematicians, masons, those who fear fireworks and lightning storms, and anyone with the risk of sudden death while at work. She is also the patron saint of Italy's largest petrol company, Ente Nazionale Idrocarbrui.

History tells us that she was the daughter of a possessive pagan father who kept her locked in a tower, away from suitors and temptations. Despite the isolation, Barbara discovered God. Her father denounced her to the authorities, who decreed that Barbara must be decapitated, but only after having been tortured for two days by, guess who, Dad. It is believed that her father was struck by lightning, aka killed by God, the day after her martyrdom. Barbara is therefore invoked against sudden deaths.

Saint Clara of Assisi is the patron of gilders, telephones, eye diseases, gold- smiths, embroiderers, laundry, telegraphs, good weather, and television. Clara was chosen for these things because she spent a long part of her life bedridden by illness. To save her from boredom, God granted her visions of liturgical functions that were taking place in church. In Italy you can even buy stickers that say, "Saint Clara, protect my television." Generally, the elderly buy them and stick them on their TV sets in the hope that they will never break down. Clara, however, is effective not only for technical faults but also for the quality of TV shows. On August 11, her feast day, nuns come together in collective prayers calling on her to purify television of sexual imagery, noneducational rubbish, and Satan.

Image provided by Scala/Art Resource, NY

Saint John of Nepomuk is the patron of floods, drowning, and Bohemia. In 1393, he was appointed the vicar general to the Archbishop of Prague, a position that led to his death on March 20 that same year. At the time, a new abbot was to be appointed to Benedictine Abbey of Kladbury, whose resources were highly sought after by Wenceslaus, the king of the Romans and of Bohemia. Wenceslaus backed the Avignon Papacy. And John, wanting to uphold the laws of the Catholic Church, sided with his archbishop's candidate, who followed the pope at Rome, Avignon's rival.

This move supremely pissed off Wenceslaus, and at the king's request, John was drowned in the Vltava River in Prague. An alternative version of the story suggests that John was drowned because he refused to tell the king what his wife, the queen of Bohemia, divulged during confession. Saint John is venerated throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and he protects against drowning and floods due to his manner of death.

Image provided by Scala/Art Resource, NY

Saint Erasmus of Formiae, aka Saint Elmo, is the patron of colic, intestinal ailments, sailors, cramps and the pain of women in labor, cattle pests, and storms—both celestial and intestinal. Erasmus was a bishop and a hermit, and his martyrdom was especially gruesome. The Roman emperor Diocletian, no friend to Christians, had Elmo bludgeoned with an iron mallet until all his veins burst, dropped in a pit filled with worms and snakes, burned with boiling oil, and forced to drink a soup made of sulfur, resin, tar, and more oil. Then he had his teeth removed with pliers and was stuck in a barrel full of spiders.

The story goes that Erasmus was so strong in his faith that he still managed to escape after all of that, hide in a cave, get captured again, and eventually be disemboweled with an anchor—hence his dual protection over sailors and people who suffer from aching stomachs. St. Elmo's fire, once considered to be a warning to sailors of coming storms, is named for him.