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Our New Parish – Our Patron Saint

Someone asked me, “What is a patron Saint?”

A patron saint is a canonized saint designated to a parish, region or country as a special intercessor with God and the proper advocate.

The practice of adopting patron saints goes back to the building of the first public churches in the Roman Empire, after peace had been established by Emperor Constantine in the fourth century AD. Most of them were built over the graves of martyrs. The churches were then given the name of the martyr, and the martyr was expected to act as an intercessor for the Christians who worshiped there.

Soon, Christians began to dedicate churches to other holy men and women (saints) who were not martyrs. Nowadays we place some relic of a saint inside the altar of each church, and we dedicate that church to a patron Saint.

There are patron saints for occupations such as St. Joseph for carpenters and St. Cecelia for musicians; patron saints for diseases like St. Lucy of Syracuse for eye complaints, St. Peregrine Laziosi for cancer; patron saints for continents and regions like St. Francis Xavier for Asia, St. Peter Chanel for Oceania, St. Cyprian for North Africa and St. Rose of Lima for South America and so on. 

All Christians should adopt their own patron saints, first and foremost being those whose name they carry or whose name they took at their Confirmation. We should have a special devotion to the patron saint of our parish, as well as the patron saint of our country and the countries of our ancestors. It's also a good practice to adopt a patron saint for our family and to honor him or her in our house with an icon or statue.

A church is dedicated primarily to God. The formula is: To God and the Sacred Humanity of Christ, to the Mother of God, to the Angels, to the Apostles and Evangelists and to other saints.

The underlying doctrine of patrons is that of the communion of saints, or the bond of spiritual union existing between God’s servants on earth, in heaven, or in purgatory. The saints are thereby regarded as the advocates and intercessors of those who are making their earthly pilgrimage.

Our Patron Saint is St. Teresa of Calcutta. She is given us as our faith model. “Poorest of the poor” is her favorite phrase. But poverty is not concerned with merely material needs. She says, “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.” As an exemplary Catholic, born in Albania and died in India as its citizen, she lived her life witnessing to the sacrificial love of Christ. Please click here to go to the web page of our patron saint.

Mother Teresa said, “A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.”

Following her footsteps, we too must breathe in God’s grace and breathe out the fragrance of Christ’s love. St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!

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