Catholics have patron saints for everything. We pray to St. Anthony, to find out our missing things. When we try to park at the mall the day after Thanksgiving, we pray to Mother Cabrini, for a spot for our little machinery. Today, we do observe Food Safety Day, let’s think about some saints related to food.
In desperate need of a little male companionship, “St. Anne, St. Anne, find me a man, find me a man as fast as you can!” (One wonders whether Well, people who work with and eat food can certainly use a little divine intervention here and there. Here are five food-related patron saints you may need recourse to one day:
St. Martha
This is Martha as in “Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus”. Martha appears in various places in the capacity of a server, helping to give refreshments to Jesus and his entourage, and
so is thought to lend her special protection to waiters and waitresses. There does not, sadly, appear to be a patron saint of good tippers; the appearance of a good tipper appears to be strictly aleatory.
St. Lawrence
St. Lawrence is the patron saint of cooks because of the manner in which he died: having been told by the Roman authorities to turn over the Church’s great riches, he assembled the halt and the lame, the blind and the decrepit in a room and told the quaestor that this was the great riches of the Church. He was handed over to be put to death. The quaestor was so angry that he ordered Lawrence to barbecue on a huge grate over charcoal. Lawrence, who had absolutely nothing left to lose, endured for a time and then called out,
“I am well done; turn me over.”
St. Benedict
While he is indirectly related to the herbal, stomach-calming liqueur known as Benedictine (named after the religious order he started), St. Benedict is important for a different reason. After having spent the better part of his life laying down rules for monasteries, he wanted to leave the monastery as the monks hated him. They hated him so much they tried to poison his wine; he prayed over it and the cup shattered. They tried to poison his food, and a great raven came and stole it before he could eat it. It’s no wonder Benedict is the saint who keeps people from food poisoning.