There’s a patron saint for almost everything. Even Protestants carry medals of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travellers. St. Veronica has become the patron saint of photography.
There’s even a patron saint for the coronavirus. St. Corona, the saint for epidemics, plagues, and pestilence.
St. Corona was a 16-year-old girl in Syria, in the second century A.D. According to the legend, she saw a Roman soldier being tortured for converting to Christianity. She defended him. She claimed a vision of the two of them wearing crowns -- hence her name, St. Corona.
For becoming Christian, the soldier had his fingers chopped off, his eyes put out, and was beheaded.
For offering compassion, St. Corona had her ankles lashed to the tops of two palm trees that had been forcibly bent to the ground. When the trees were released, the girl was ripped apart.
Yes, I wince too. I have to remind myself that in earlier centuries, compassion was often considered weakness. Cruelty was a valued trait. Authorities deliberately practiced cruelty to maintain order, to deter dissent and rebellion.
The famous Coliseum in Rome is a monument to cruelty as entertainment.
Keeping her promise
How being ripped apart made Corona the patron saint of plagues and epidemics, I won’t attempt to guess.
But northern Italy, and parts of Austria and Bavaria, have numerous St. Corona chapels. Including one a short distance from the village of Oberammergau, in the Bavarian alps.
According to Fr. Thomas Groener, the priest in Oberammergau, it was probably to St. Corona that the villagers prayed in 1633 to be spared from the bubonic plague.
The plague, also called the Black Death, had ravaged Europe for a couple of centuries. The village had already quarantined itself; it had effectively gone into lockdown. Guards patrolled potential entries and exits from the valley.
But one man sneaked in, and brought the plague with him.
With no acquired immunity, a quarter of the population died over the next year.
So the villagers prayed for deliverance. They promised that if spared, they would present a passion play -- re-enacting the last week of Jesus’ life -- every year.
It must have worked, says Groener. He shows a booklet listing all the names of plague victims, handwritten in ink. The deaths stopped in 1634. “And then no more,” says Groener.
St. Corona kept her promise.
So did the villagers. Although in 1680, they switched to putting on the Passion Play every tenth year. With a couple of exceptions -- mostly because of two World Wars -- they have continued to present their Passion Play every ten years.
I’m biased -- I’ve attended it three times.
Ironically, this year’s scheduled performances had to be cancelled. Because of a virus given St. Corona’s name.
Likewise a planned display of St. Corona’s coffin, in the cathedral of Aachen in Germany. Corona’s remains, gathered up after her grisly death, were interred in a lead coffin, brought to Aachen in 997, later enclosed in a massive gold reliquary.
Like the Passion Play, the coronavirus has put St. Corona’s public debut on hold.
It makes me wonder -- when the patron saint of pandemics becomes a victim of a pandemic herself, to whom would one pray? St. Jude?
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Copyright © 2020 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
I was surprised, although perhaps I shouldn’t have been, by the number of letters about last week’s column on unfinished business.
Bob Rollwagen wrote, “I am surrounded by unfinished business. I consider them to be works in progress. In many cases, I am not sure they will ever be done. I try to never miss a promised date for delivery or completion but that is [after] limiting the circumstances that require me to make a promise. Sometimes I even forget I have an outstanding project, but then, I have ears and am open to reminders.
“This is called retirement, I think…”
David Gilchrist also reflected on retirement: “I still haven’t finished everything I planned to do after I retired in 1993); and seem to keep starting new projects… As with Joan, so my late wife (who died at 57 back in 1989) left her last piece of needlework about half finished. And you made me realize that it is not something to worry about: but that it is in fact the way I want it to be.
“I don’t want to spend my waning years with ‘nothing to do’; so will always have something to work on until my time comes …”
Isabel Gibson: That's a lovely reframing of unfinished business. I think you're right. We need to look forward to doing things. If we leave some things undone, that's a sign we filled our time.
Bill Rogers also reflected on retirement: “I lay in bed on my first day of retirement thinking ‘I can get up or I can stay here all day and no one will know — and no one will care!’ So I got up to continue with unfinished and ongoing business. If everything is done, nothing needed to do, I would be left to just sit and wait....
“To accomplish everything would throw us off track to be forward-thinking beings -- there is no 'finished'.
“Now at 90, I purchased a house with a mortgage -- there is no time to make all the changes I want, or even to pay off the mortgage: my unfinished business. Meanwhile I have a project that will goad me into innovation, creativeness, and industry.”
John Shaffer called my column “a helpful reflection. It will help me deal with my own unfinished business. Sadly, I have completed my ‘bucket list’ of travel, but there are still things I would like to do. Right now,I am trying to make it easier on those who have to dispose of our treasures and junk.”
John’s wife Barbara Dadd Shaffer was hooked by my reference to Joan’s unfinished embroidery: “The almost but-not-quite finished embroidery piece? Frame it in the same manner as the previous seven pieces. Two possibilities for the 24 remaining stitches. One is to ask a friend to finish them. I prefer to frame it as is, acknowledging the life which she lived. Also acknowledging that death ends an earthly life a bit before everything is complete.”
Jim McKean had similar thoughts: “Michelangelo deliberately didn't finish some of his statues. Perhaps that what needs to be with your wife's last piece of work. In many ways that says volumes about her, her work, and our collective journeys.”
Jayne Whyte “loved that the last piece of needlework needed 24 stitches. I need projects that keep me going, but also there are times to just let go. When someone dies, something with us is left incomplete and the embroidery piece is a visible sign of your loss too.
“On a lighter note is a sign for my office wall: ‘A clear desk is a sign of an empty mind.’ Looking around, I'm in no danger!”
Chris Duxbury from Australia: “Thanks Jim, your article makes me feel relieved with all the emails that I never get around to reading. I remember my history teacher giving her class a gift of a ‘round tuit,’ when we finished high school!
“I guess in life we have a continual priority list and work from that, never getting it all done, whatever ‘it’ is.”
Jan Edwards also expressed thanks “for your thoughts on things we didn't get around to yet, and for the insight about the blessing of still having things to do when we die. This year at least I have found the fall (and our somewhat early winter) getting me doing some neglected things. I have found these cooler months invigorating after a summer of good intentions and procrastination. Although. as someone said, ‘The good thing about procrastination is that you always have something to do tomorrow -- and nothing to do today!’”
Doug Linzey found the column comforting: “I'm with you on not feeling guilty about having unfinished business. It seems that the older I get the more of it there is. And I look forward to continuing to be busy. I guess there's a reason I don't have a recliner.
“The issue now is to separate that business into two piles: the one that must be tackled for the benefit of those left behind, and the rest of it. My wife has taken recently to reminding me of the former.”
Allan Baker: “Your reflection on Fall brought to my mind some words by Joan Chittister: ‘Fall teaches us the value of resting our minds as well as our bodies, the value of readiness, the value of transition. In all the in-between phases and places of life, we are given the time to allow our souls to catch up with our restless energies, to take stock of the present, to get sight of all our possible futures and choose between them.’”
Barry Durie, writing from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: “Thank you for the wonderful incorporating of our fall season and its incompleteness into all the, ‘not yet done’ pieces of our living. I believe you are correct in suggesting completing all our business could be a fate worse than death. What popped in my mind was the truism that 'death comes in the middle of living'. I guess our calling is to live as fully as we can till we no longer live. Not in some frenetic death-denying sort of way, but in the simple savoring of the gifts around us, including your wife’s unfinished embroidery. That feels like gift, perhaps still tinged with deep loss, but gift.”
Tom Watson also commented on the unfinished embroidery. Tom’s wife Janice left an unfinished sweater. After she died, he wrote a poem about it, from which I’ll only quote eight lines. If you want the whole poem, write tomwatso@gmail.com
The unfinished sweater
Sat stuffed in a sack,
Awaiting the knitter
To find time to get back…
She started it thirty-five,
Maybe forty years ago,
Then set it aside
The going was slow…
Finally, this column’s resident atheist Frank Martens wrote about your letters: “It is always interesting to read the comments by your many Christian readers. I imagine you still get a great deal of satisfaction in helping that particular group. Perhaps the ‘group’ to which I belong enjoy your commentary [too] but hesitate to make their presence known.”
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Psalm paraphrase
I discovered I have four different versions of Psalm 107, the RCL psalm for this Sunday, and I don’t like any of them. So here’s one for the alternate, Psalm 43.
1 The skeptics make fun of my beliefs;
They scorn my convictions.
"There is no God," they say.
"Why should we care about right and wrong?"
2 They laugh at me when I turn to you, my God.
And when apparently you do not answer,
they call it confirmation of their charges.
Why do you let these things happen?
3 We need a sign as unmistakeable as a searchlight beam sweeping the darkness;
Then all can see and follow the beam to its luminous source.
4 There we will find you, our God.
In the white-hot arc of your presence, all doubts will burn away.
We will be ready to serve you with all our lives.
5 With heart and soul, with mind and strength, O God, I believe;
Strip away any lingering unbelief.
We put our trust in you;
you are our God.
You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalmsavailable from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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And for those of you who like poetry, please check my webpage .https://quixotic.ca/My-Poetry I posted several new poetic works there a few weeks ago. If you’d like to receive notifications about new poems, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca, or subscribe yourself to the list by sending a blank email (no message) to poetry-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca (If it doesn’t work, please let me know.)
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PROMOTION STUFF
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. Some spam filters have blocked my posts because they’re suspicious of some of the web links.
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca He’s also relatively inexpensive!
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also has lots of beautiful photos. Especially of birds.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)
ALVA WOOD’S ARCHIVE
I have acquired (don’t ask how) the complete archive of the late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures. I’ve put them on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. You’re welcome to browse. No charge. (Although maybe if I charged a fee, more people would find the archive worth visiting.)