(Pt.1)
Hm. That's what I get for trusting the first semi-official website about saints that I come across. A second site - saint.sqpn.com - has St. Elizabeth of Portugal down as patron for sixteen things:
against jealousy
brides
charitable societies
charitable workers
charities
Coimbra, Portugal
difficult marriages
falsely accused people
invoked in time of war
peace
queens
tertiaries
victims of adultery
victims of jealousy
victims of unfaithfulness
widows
Still. Two points have me not changing my tune. THREE points! Three points have me not changing my tune. The first point is, a few of those seem kind of marginal - "tertiaries"? "COIMBRA, Portugal"? Why just one little town! They don't call her Elizabeth of Coimbra! "Queens" seems as though it'd be pretty light work too. How many of those are there, to dole out blessings upon? And most of 'em...one would think, they've got enough blessings they can dole out their own. Unless they mean Queens, NY. Now that would be a sizable job. But I don't think they mean that - I think they mean female monarchs.
Second point: she's got quite a lot of help with the major ones of these. I clicked "widows" and there are 44 saints in charge of widows. So she has backup.
Third point: if she's already handling 16 patronages, what's another 2 on top of that? Okay, okay, maybe the particular details of her biography don't suit her particularly well to be Patron Saint of Independence. So I'll leave that one aside. But come on: fireworks.
We need a Patron Saint of Fireworks! And who better than Miss July 4th herself: St. Elizabeth of Portugal!
Hm. That's what I get for trusting the first semi-official website about saints that I come across. A second site - saint.sqpn.com - has St. Elizabeth of Portugal down as patron for sixteen things:
against jealousy
brides
charitable societies
charitable workers
charities
Coimbra, Portugal
difficult marriages
falsely accused people
invoked in time of war
peace
queens
tertiaries
victims of adultery
victims of jealousy
victims of unfaithfulness
widows
Still. Two points have me not changing my tune. THREE points! Three points have me not changing my tune. The first point is, a few of those seem kind of marginal - "tertiaries"? "COIMBRA, Portugal"? Why just one little town! They don't call her Elizabeth of Coimbra! "Queens" seems as though it'd be pretty light work too. How many of those are there, to dole out blessings upon? And most of 'em...one would think, they've got enough blessings they can dole out their own. Unless they mean Queens, NY. Now that would be a sizable job. But I don't think they mean that - I think they mean female monarchs.
Second point: she's got quite a lot of help with the major ones of these. I clicked "widows" and there are 44 saints in charge of widows. So she has backup.
Third point: if she's already handling 16 patronages, what's another 2 on top of that? Okay, okay, maybe the particular details of her biography don't suit her particularly well to be Patron Saint of Independence. So I'll leave that one aside. But come on: fireworks.
We need a Patron Saint of Fireworks! And who better than Miss July 4th herself: St. Elizabeth of Portugal!
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