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    ST Christopher

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    Kami Ryu
    St. Christopher is traditionally venerated as a giant man who carried people across a river before converting to Christianity. According to legend, one of the people he carried was Jesus in the form of a child, who grew heavier upon his shoulders, representing the weight of the world. St. Christopher suffered martyrdom during persecutions in the 3rd century. He is the patron saint of travelers due to carrying people across the river. Although St. Christopher was removed from the universal liturgical calendar in 1969 due to a lack of historical evidence about his life, he is still considered a saint and worthy of devotion by Catholics.

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    ST Christopher

    Uploaded by

    Kami Ryu
    20 views1 page
    St. Christopher is traditionally venerated as a giant man who carried people across a river before converting to Christianity. According to legend, one of the people he carried was Jesus in the form of a child, who grew heavier upon his shoulders, representing the weight of the world. St. Christopher suffered martyrdom during persecutions in the 3rd century. He is the patron saint of travelers due to carrying people across the river. Although St. Christopher was removed from the universal liturgical calendar in 1969 due to a lack of historical evidence about his life, he is still considered a saint and worthy of devotion by Catholics.

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    Saint Christopher

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    St Christopher

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    St. Christopher is traditionally venerated as a giant man who carried people across a river before converting to Christianity. According to legend, one of the people he carried was Jesus in the form of a child, who grew heavier upon his shoulders, representing the weight of the world. St. Christopher suffered martyrdom during persecutions in the 3rd century. He is the patron saint of travelers due to carrying people across the river. Although St. Christopher was removed from the universal liturgical calendar in 1969 due to a lack of historical evidence about his life, he is still considered a saint and worthy of devotion by Catholics.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    20 views1 page

    ST Christopher

    Uploaded by

    Kami Ryu
    St. Christopher is traditionally venerated as a giant man who carried people across a river before converting to Christianity. According to legend, one of the people he carried was Jesus in the form of a child, who grew heavier upon his shoulders, representing the weight of the world. St. Christopher suffered martyrdom during persecutions in the 3rd century. He is the patron saint of travelers due to carrying people across the river. Although St. Christopher was removed from the universal liturgical calendar in 1969 due to a lack of historical evidence about his life, he is still considered a saint and worthy of devotion by Catholics.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 1

    St.

    Christopher the 'Christ Bearer'


    by Fr. William Saunders
    St. Christopher is still a saint. Tradition holds that he died at Lycia on the southern coast of Asia Minor about
    the year 251. Various legends surround his life. The most popular is that he was a rather ugly, giant man, born
    to a heathen king who was married to a Christian, who had prayed to the Blessed Mother for a child. Originally
    named "Offerus," he carried people across the river for his livelihood. (Another source stated that he was named
    "Reprobus" prior to his baptism, and then changed his name.)
    He converted from paganism through the teaching of a hermit, named "Babylas." Christopher believed that our
    Lord was the most powerful of all, more powerful than any man and one whom even Satan feared.
    Again according to legend, one day one of his passengers to cross the river was a small child. As they
    proceeded, the child kept growing heavier; and Christopher feared that they would drown. The child then
    revealed Himself as Jesus, and the heaviness was due to the weight of the world that He carried on His
    shoulders.
    According to the Roman Martyrology, he suffered martyrdom during the persecution of Emperor Decius by
    being shot with arrows after surviving burning.
    The name Christopher means "Christ bearer." He is the patron saint of travelers, especially those driving cars.
    His popularity increased during the Middle Ages. However, evidence attests to widespread devotion even prior
    to this time: St. Remigius of Rheims was buried in 532 in a church dedicated to St. Christopher; Pope St.
    Gregory the Great (d. 604) mentioned in his letters a monastery dedicated to this saint; and the Mozarabic
    Breviary and Missal of St. Isidore of Seville (d. 636) has a special office dedicated to him.
    St. Christopher is particularly venerated in Southern Germany, Austria and Northern Italy (which was part of
    the Austrian Empire until after World War I), because he is one, of the "Fourteen Holy Helpers," a group of
    saints invoked as early as the 12th century in these areas and who are honored on Aug. 8: St. Denis of Paris
    (headache and rabies), St. Erasmus or Elmo (colic and cramp), St. Blaise (throat ailments), St. Barbara
    (lightning, fire, explosion, and sudden and unprepared death), St. Margaret (possession and pregnancy), St.
    Catherine of Alexandria (philosophers and students, and wheelwrights), St. George (protector of soldiers), Sts.
    Achatius and Eustace (hunters), St. Pantaleon (tuberculosis), St. Giles (epilepsy, insanity and sterility), St.
    Cyriac (demonic possession), St. Vitus (epilepsy) and St. Christopher (travelers). The German Dominicans
    promoted this veneration, particularly at the Church of St. Blaise in Regensburg (c. 1320).
    Moreover, medals of St. Christopher and car medallions or pins are still manufactured and used by the faithful.
    St. Christopher's feast day is still July 25, and the proper of the Mass in his honor is found in the 1962 edition of
    the Roman Missal still authorized for the Tridentine Mass.
    The confusion over whether St. Christopher is still a saint arose when Pope Paul VI revised the Liturgical
    Calendar, which includes the feast days of saints that are commemorated at Mass. Due to the proliferation of the
    number of feast days over the centuries, the Second Vatican Council in its "Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy"
    proposed, "Lest the feasts of the saints should take precedence over the feasts which commemorate the very
    mysteries of salvation, many of them should be left to be celebrated by a particular Church, or nation, or family
    of religious. Only those should be extended to the universal Church which commemorate saints who are truly of
    universal importance" (No. 111). With this in mind, a special commission — Consilium — examined the
    calendar and removed those saints whose historical base was more grounded on tradition than provable fact,
    changed the feast days to coincide with the anniversary of a saint's death or martyrdom whenever possible, and
    added saints that were recently canonized and had universal Church appeal. Moreover, local conferences of
    bishops could add to the universal calendar those saints important to the faithful in their own country. In no way
    did the Church "de-canonize" St. Christopher or anyone else, despite the lack of historical evidence surrounding
    their lives. St. Christopher is still worthy of our devotion and prayers, and each of us should be mindful that he
    too is called to be a "bearer of Christ."

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