Saints are weird

While looking for religious clothes (because there's some really nice fabric arts in some robes, and also because shiny) I found a catholic site full of little saint medals. I thought they'd be like those places that say you can get your name on a t-shirt and then just fill in a name, even though I knew there's lots of saints with conventional signs worked up for centuries of church art, I just thought they'd be cheap, but they've all got their own little pictures so far. Also their own stories.

Saint stories are weird. I can understand saints who built schools or did a lot of studying or even the ones who like lived in a small room and thought things about god (seeing as I live mostly in a room and think things about aliens and ghosts and buddha and gods), but I do not understand the ones who are famous mostly for having bits chopped off or having terrible diseases or just dying horribly. I mean, I can understand telling stories to aspire to, or even to inspire courage in adversity, but... there's so many of them. Dead people everywhere. Er, I know saints have to be dead before they get to be saints, but I mean, I'd have thought people to go in stories would need to do something before that.

... I have always liked the story about St Lawrence though. The one that says he was getting grilled to death so he told them to turn him over, that side was done. Is probably made up, but if you've got to go, may as well leave a good story. I do still reckon it's a very odd story to tell small children though. Like, hi, your school is named after someone getting cooked to death. Bacon for breakfast anyone?

The saint who has the story of never being alone with a woman in his life is a whole different kind of weird.

I think I like how they all get to be patrons of things, and how lots of things have lots of patrons. Seems like an efficient sort of afterlife, having a Thing and getting the hang of it.

So now I'm thinking of making a list of Saints Who Seem Quite Useful And Don't Creep Me Out, but it seems like it would take quite a long time. And maybe be a short list.

Okay, freaky

saw a medal of St. Rita of Cascia, patron of loneliness and impossible dreams, or just patron of the impossible, depending where you read. Looked her up. Found a page on Incorruptibles:

St. Rita of Cascia - Died in 1457. Her body kept a sweet fragrance all of these centuries and is on display in a glass case in the Basilica of St. Rita in Cascia, Italy. It is also publicly known that her body has been seen in different positions in the glass case, as well as eyes having opened and closed unaided.

Okay, arrrgh! Kept in a glass box, still blinking? I read waaaaaay too many horror stories to like this idea. Did nobody try letting her out?

Also on wiki it seems she's known for being stinky. And being teleported into the monastery in the middle of the night when they said she couldn't be a nun.

*blinks*